BANCROFT    LIBRARY 


AN    ATTACK    ON    THE    SETTLERS    BY    THE    INDIANS. 


When  America  Was  New 


BY 

TUDOR  JENKS 


NEW  YORK 

YOUNG  PEOPLE'S  MISSIONARY  MOVEMENT  OF 
THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  CANADA 


53 


COPYRIGHT,  1907, 
By  THOMAS  Y.  CROWELL  &  COMPANY 


SECOND  EDITION 


Contents 


CHAP.  PACK 

PREFACE     .        .     ^  .        .        .        .    vii 
I.     THE  PLANTING  OF  VIRGINIA        .        .      t 

Why  America  was  discovered  and  settled.  The 
first  English  settlement  at  Jamestown,  and  its 
early  fortunes.  The  big  plantations,  and  the 
dwellers  on  them. 

II.     THE  FIRST  NEW  ENGLANDERS     .        .     29 

The  first  New  Englanders  come  to  Plymouth. 
Causes  that  sent  settlers  to  America.  The 
Pilgrims,  and  their  story.  The  hardships  of 
their  voyage — piracy,  stormy  weather,  dread 
of  the  sea's  mystery.  Settlement  at  Plym- 
outh, and  how  they  overcame  difficulties. 

III.     THE  DIFFERENT  SETTLERS  .        .        -59 

The  sort  of  colonies  that  grew  up,  north  and 
south.  The  coming  of  the  Puritans.  How 
they  differed  from  the  Pilgrims.  Their  wise 
management  of  affairs.  Growth  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts settlement.  The  governing  of  the 
New  England  towns ;  interference  of  the 
English  with  the  Virginians  and  New  Eng- 
landers. Why  this  interference  was  unwise. 
The  new  conditions  the  colonists  had  to  meet. 
The  fighting  against  Indians,  and  other  mat- 
ters the  colonists  must  manage  in  their  own 
ways. 

iii 


iv  Contents 

IV.     MARYLANDERS  AND  DUTCH       .        .      79 

The  Maryland  Colony,  and  how  it  differed 
from  Virginia  and  New  England.  Why 
it  was  tolerant.  How  it  was  governed. 
The  Dutch  Settlement  at  New  Amsterdam, 
started  as  trading  posts.  Why  it  was  not 
successful,  and  passed  into  the  hands  of 
the  English.  The  value  of  the  fur-trade, 
and  how  it  made  the  French  and  Indians 
friendly  allies.  The  growth  of  commerce 
in  America.  The  routes  of  travel,  and  of 
trade.  Smuggling. 

V.    NEW  WORLD  LIVING        .        .        .     104 

Making  of  homes  in  the  New  World,  both 
north  and  south.  The  Virginian  and  the 
New  Englander,  making  a  living.  The 
abundance  of  food.  The  nature  of  the 
Indians,  and  the  conflicts  with  them. 
What  was  learned  from  them.  The 
housewives  and  their  work,  and  the  work 
and  play  of  the  children. 

VI.     MAKING  THE  HOMESTEAD          .         .     1 30 

A  settler's  family  in  the  woods.  The  story 
of  a  family  and  its  homestead.  Their 
work  and  their  household  tasks.  The  be- 
ginning  of  a  farm  in  the  north,  and  of  a 
plantation  in  the  south.  Settlers  who  suc- 
ceeded and  settlers  who  failed.  The  life 
in  the  settlements.  Travel,  work,  house- 
hold furniture,  and  contrivances. 

VII.     MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS    .         .  ,      .     155 

About  the  life  in  towns.  The  governing  of 
the  townspeople.  What  the  towns  were 
like,  and  the  sort  of  people  who  lived  in 
them.  How  their  property  was  managed. 
The  magistrates,  and  the  keeping  of  order ; 
punishments.  The  colonies'  law-makers. 


Contents  v 

The  rulers  in  England,  and  their  govern- 
ing of  the  colonies.  Different  ways  of 
ruling  the  colonies.  The  military  forces, 
and  how  they  fought  the  Indians. 

VIII.    THE  INDOOR  LIFE    .         .        .         .     172 

Inside  the  colonial  houses.     The  life  of  the 
inmates.     Their   meals   and  their  hours. 
Their  dress  and  ornaments.     Their  man 
ners  and  customs.     The  furniture,  lights, 
and  fires.     Their  kitchens  and  cooking. 

IX.    WHAT  THE  COLONISTS  KNEW  AND 

THOUGHT     .        .        .        .  .      .     192. 

What  the  colonists  knew,  and  their  ways  of 
thinking.  Astronomy  and  astrology ;  minor 
superstitions,  and  queer  ideas  about  na- 
ture. Notions  of  the  unseen  world,  and 
belief  in  witchcraft.  Beliefs  about  disease 
and  medicine ;  the  colonial  doctors  and 
healers;  charms  and  herbs  and  magical 
remedies.  The  feelings  of  the  colonists 
toward  their  rulers  and  men  in  authority. 
Their  indifference  to  natural  beauty. 
Their  loyalty  toward  the  ruling  powers  in 
England,  toward  foreign  nations,  and  to- 
ward the  Indian  tribes. 

X.  BOOKS,  READING  AND  EDUCATION  .  216 

The  colonists  and  their  reading.  What 
books  they  knew.  The  education  of  the 
young,  in  schools  or  at  home.  The  hours 
of  recreation.  The  amusements  of  old  and 
young.  The  little  time  given  to  recrea- 
tion, and  the  slight  interest  in  the  arts  or 
in  literature.  Their  way  of  life  as  seen 
by  visitors  from  abroad. 

XI.    EFFECTS  OF  THE  NEW  LIFE     .        .235 

Nature  of  the  men  and  women  who  began 
the  American  nation.  How  they  were 
bettered  by  life  in  the  new  world.  Exam- 


vi  Contents 

pies  in  the  southern  colonies,  and  in  the 
northern,  showing  the  changes  brought 
about  by  new  conditions  of  life.  How  the 
children  were  brought  up.  How  families 
became  richer  or  poorer ;  the  first-comers 
and  their  successors.  The  division  into 
classes,  and  its  effect  on  the  people. 

XII.   THE  WOMEN  AND  CHILDREN    .        .     254 

The  women  and  children.  Their  life  and 
work.  What  the  children  were  taught  in 
different  ranks  of  life.  The  public  schools, 
teachers  and  pupils.  The  young  people's 
life,  north  and  south.  Advantages  of 
colonial  children. 

XIII.  GROWTH  OF  A  NEW  PEOPLE  - ;,  » * ,.    268 

Differences  between  the  old  world  and  the 
new.  What  made  the  Americans  a  new 
people.  The  growing  of  the  feeling  of 
equality,  and  its  causes.  The  interest  of 
the  Americans  in  matters  of  religion  and 
government.  The  changes  in  language, 
new  words  and  new  ideas.  Changes  in 
costume  and  custom.  "Physical  changes 
caused  by  life  in  a  new  country.  The 
awakening  of  ambition  by  better  chances 
in  life. 

XIV.  INDEPENDENCE  AND  UNION       .        .    288 

The  making  of  the  various  colonists  into  one 
people.  The  growth  of  independence  and 
love  of  freedom.  The  habit  of  acting  to- 
gether. How  Indian  wars  taught  the 
colonists  to  unite.  Most  important  events 
from  the  settlement  of  Jamestown  to  1689. 
The  nature  of  the  American  people  as 
created  by  their  history  up  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war  between  England  and 
France  in  1689 — which  ends  the  early 
period  of  colonial  history. 


Illustrations 

AN   ATTACK    ON   THE   SETTLERS  BY  THE 

INDIANS    ....          Frontispiece 

From  a  Drawing  by  Frank  T.  Merrill 

TYPES   OF   SHIPS    USED    BY   THE    EARLY     PAGH 
COLONISTS 8 

From  an  Illustration  in  Smith's  "  Travels  " 

MAP  OF  ENGLISH  GRANTS,  1606-1732  .  30 
VIEW  OF  PLYMOUTH  ....  52 
A  PILGRIM  SOLDIER,  ARMOR  AND  WEAPONS  64 

MAP  OF  FRENCH,  ENGLISH,  DUTCH, SWEDISH, 

AND  SPANISH  PROVINCES,  1655  .         .       86 

A  DUTCH  WEDDING;  SHOWING  COSTUMES 

WORN  IN  EARLY  AMERICAN  DAYS      .       98 

OLD  MARYLAND  MANOR  HOUSE  .  .  108 
PRIMITIVE  MODE  OF  GRINDING  CORN  .  126 

EARLY  HOUSEHOLD  UTENSILS  AND  FURNI- 
TURE       ......     142 

TYPES  OF  EARLY  COLONIAL  CHAIRS  .  .174 

OLD  NEW  YORK  MANSION         .  .  .196 

A  BETTER  CLASS  COLONIAL  HOME  .  .     226 

vii 


viii  Illustrations 

FAGB 

LOOM  AND  SPINNING-WHEEL  USED  IN  A 

SETTLER'S  HOME  .  :.  .  258 

MAP  SHOWING  DISTRIBUTION  OF  INDIAN 
TRIBES  AT  THE  TIME  OF  THE  FRENCH 
AND  INDIAN  WAR  .  .  .  •  298 


Preface 

THE  time  told  of  in  this  volume  is  that 
which  covers  the  years  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  during  which  the  first 
settlers  came  from  the  Old  World  to  the  New, 
made  for  themselves  and  their  families  rude 
homes  in  the  wilderness,  and,  after  long  strug- 
gles, aided  by  help  from  across  the  ocean,  at 
length  found  that  they  could  live  and  make  self- 
supporting  homes  in  this,  then  a  new  country. 

We  shall  learn  why  the  first  settlers  chose  to 
begin  at  certain  parts  of  the  coast ;  we  shall  see 
how  they  managed  to  get  a  living ;  how  they 
met  the  hardships  of  their  new  life ;  and  what 
sort  of  men  and  women  they  became  because  of 
the  kind  of  life  they  led.  We  shall  see  the  little 
huts  they  first  built  giving  way  to  better  dwell- 
ings, the  small  settlements  growing  to  villages 
and  towns  and  even  cities.  There  will  be  told 
how  they  made  their  living,  what  sort  of  homes 
they  built,  what  work  they  did,  and  how  they 
passed  their  hours  of  rest  and  amusement. 

We  shall  learn  how  they  got  along  with  one 
another,  what  they  thought  of  the  Indians,  and 
ix 


x  Preface 

what  came  from  the  meeting  of  the  two  races. 
There  are  changes  in  their  way  of  living  to  be 
told  about,  changes  that  came  from  the  new  con- 
ditions met  with  in  the  new  land.  We  shall  try 
to  learn  about  things  that  would  have  interested 
us  had  we  lived  during  those  trying  years  and 
helped  in  settling  the  country.  We  shall  come 
with  the  very  first  who  crossed  the  ocean  mean- 
ing to  make  their  homes  here.  We  shall  see 
them  clear  away  the  forest  in  order  to  make 
room  for  their  houses  and  fields  for  their  crops. 
We  shall  meet  the  Indian  by  day  and  by  night, 
in  peace  and  in  a  kind  of  warfare  new  to  these 
comers  from  the  Old  World. 

We  shall  try  to  see  what  callings  the  Ameri- 
cans found  would  pay  them  best,  what  inventions 
they  had  to  make  to  meet  the  new  conditions  of 
life  where  they  had  to  do  without  many  helps  to 
which  they  had  been  used  at  home — to  make 
bread  without  great  mills  to  grind  their  flour,  to 
build  houses  without  boards  and  timbers  ready 
shaped  to  their  hands,  to  find  or  make  for  them- 
selves many  articles  of  daily  use,  such  as  soap, 
sugar,  candles  and  cloth,  which  they  had  been 
used  to  buy  in  well  provided  shops. 

And  over  all  these  difficulties  we  shall  see 
them  winning  their  way,  not  only  to  comfort, 


Preface  xi 

but  to  happiness  and  prosperity.  We  shall  see 
them  begin  a  new  nation  in  the  wilderness  and 
make  this  great  land  an  abode  ready  for  civilized 
men,  for  women  and  little  children,  instead  of 
being  a  wild,  unknown  country  where  Indians 
lived  and  roved,  leading  a  life  almost  ignorant  of 
what  these  white  men  thought  necessaries  of  life. 


When  America  Was  New 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  PLANTING  OF  VIRGINIA 

ALL  the  histories  now  tell  us  that  America 
had  been  found  by  many  sea-faring  men 
long  before  Columbus  sailed  from  Spain ; 
but  when  Columbus  crossed  the  ocean  it  was  with 
a  purpose  of  making  use  of  his  discovery.  This 
was  because  the  European  people  were  eager  to 
trade  with  the  peoples  of  Asia,  and  the  journey 
from  Europe  to  Asia  by  way  of  the  Mediterranean 
Sea  and  past  Constantinople  or  around  Arabia  had 
been  closed  by  the  Turks  who  fought  the  Chris- 
tian merchants,  and  when  captured  made  slaves 
of  them. 

The  merchants  of  Europe  looked  for  other 
routes  to  Asia,  and  in  this  way  came  to  explore 
the  ocean  westward.  Some  explorers  went  south 
and  some  west,  and  Columbus  in  this  search 
found  the  West  Indies.  Then  all  the  men  who 
knew  about  his  success  thought  it  would  soon  be 
easy  to  secure  the  silks,  the  pearls,  the  spices,  the 
i 


2  When  America  Was  New 

rugs,  and  other  valuable  things  they  knew  were 
to  be  had  in  China,  Japan  and  India.  But  the 
few  who  had  landed  on  the  "  West  India " 
islands  soon  found  out  that  if  the  new  land  was 
part  of  Asia,  it  was  a  savage  and  unsettled  part — 
a  wilderness.  And  meanwhile  the  sailors  who 
had  gone  South,  around  Africa,  had  succeeded  in 
getting  to  the  real  coast  of  India,  and  brought 
back  pepper,  spices,  rich  stuffs  of  silk  and  satin, 
ivory  and  bronzes  to  prove  their  success.  This 
caused  the  early  voyages  to  America  to  be  less 
thought  of,  since  the  merchants  of  the  time  were 
not  looking  for  new  and  unsettled  lands,  but  for 
seaports  with  which  to  trade. 

It  was  not  until  many  a  long  year  afterward 
that  America  was  known  to  be  a  new  continent, 
and  meanwhile  no  one  had  any  idea  of  making  a 
settlement  on  its  shores  except  to  trade  with  the 
natives  or  to  gather  some  of  the  products  of  the 
land.  There  was  some  idea,  too,  of  making  the 
natives  Christians. 

But  orie  of  the  strongest  motives  was  the  long- 
ing to  find  gold  and  silver. 

To  understand  how  it  was  brought  about  that 
the  Spaniards  sought  gold  in  America  we  shall 
have  to  look  back  to  the  adventurer,  Balboa,  the 
discoverer  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  An  Indian 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  3 

chief  one  day  told  him  that  beyond  the  moun- 
tains to  the  westward  was  a  great  sea,  bearing 
ships  like  those  of  the  white  men,  and  that  the 
countries  of  this  coast  abounded  in  gold  and 
silver.  This  caused  Balboa  to  go  westward, 
brought  about  the  finding  of  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
and  also  put  into  the  minds  of  the  Spaniards  the 
notion  that  the  precious  metals  were  plentiful  in 
the  New  World. 

When  Ponce  de  Leon  came  to  Florida  during 
the  same  year,  1513,  he  also  heard  there  that 
southward  were  lands  rich  in  gold  and  silver  and 
blessed  by  a  perfect  climate.  De  Leon  attempted 
a  settlement  in  Florida,  but  his  men  were  driven 
away  by  the  Indians,  suffered  greatly  from  ill- 
ness, and  de  Leon  himself  was  wounded.  So  his 
attempt  came  to  nothing. 

Mexico,  discovered  a  few  years  later,  seemed 
to  promise  the  wealth  of  which  the  Spaniards 
were  in  search,  and  the  great  leader,  Cortez, 
warred  against  the  natives  for  two  years,  taking 
many  of  their  towns. 

A  Spanish  expedition  also  began  a  settlement, 
in  1526,  not  far  from  what  afterward  became 
Jamestown,  but  it  was  a  failure  and  abandoned. 

In  short,  the  desire  to  find  wealth  and  to  make 
slaves,  brought  a  number  of  military  expeditions 


4  When  America  Was  New 

from  Spain  and  gave  rise  to  most  extravagant 
stories  about  the  abundance  of  gold  and  silver 
among  the  Indians.  Few  of  the  stories  are  more 
interesting  than  that  of  Cabeza  de  Vaca,  who, 
from  1527,  wandered  for  nine  years  through  the 
southwest  picking  up  from  the  natives  wild 
legends  of  marvelous  cities  full  of  gold  and 
precious  stones.  As  a  result  expeditions  were 
sent  out  to  conquer  these  rich  places,  but  of 
course  found  nothing  more  remarkable  than  the 
great  pueblos  of  the  Southwest — marvelous  com- 
munity villages,  it  is  true,  but  having  nothing  of 
the  wealth  that  the  Spaniards  expected. 

In  the  stories  of  great  marches  made  by 
Coronado,  1540-42,  and  in  those  of  de  Soto, 
covering  the  same  period,  we  may  read  how 
these  European  soldiers  were  amazed  by  the 
countless  herds  of  buffalo,  the  great  treeless 
plains,  the  enormous  rivers,  and  we  wonder  over 
the  almost  unbelievable  exploits  of  these  early 
Spanish  heroes. 

Few  tales  are  more  romantic,  but  since  they 
came  in  armies  and  looked  only  for  treasure, 
they  attempted  no  lasting  settlements,  but  moved 
from  place  to  place,  dwelling  in  the  Indian  vil- 
lages, or  seeking  to  establish  nothing  more  home- 
like than  a  trading-post. 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  5 

The  French  and  English  fishermen  also  came 
to  the  coasts  of  America  to  catch  codfish,  but 
there  was  only  one  attempt  to  make  a  real  colony 
of  men  and  women  before  the  settlement  of 
Jamestown,  in  Virginia.  This  first  attempt  was 
when  some  French  Huguenots  or  Protestants 
were  sent  to  Florida,  in  1562;  but  they  were  all 
slain  by  the  Spaniards,  not  only  because  they 
were  "  heretics,"  and  so  enemies  of  Spain,  but 
because  they  were  in  a  land  the  Spaniards 
claimed  as  their  own.  Even  the  settlers  of 
Jamestown  were  sent  over  to  make  money  for 
the  men  who  sent  them,  by  finding  gold-mines, 
looking  for  a  way  to  Asia,  or  cutting  rare  woods. 

Virginia  came  to  be  settled  because  some  Lon- 
don merchants  thought  they  could  make  money 
by  sending  people  to  establish  a  settlement  in 
America — a  sort  of  trading  post. 

The  first  Englishman  to  sail  around  the  world 
had  been  Sir  Francis  Drake,  and  what  was 
learned  by  him  in  his  voyage  made  other  English 
sailors  eager  to  visit  the  New  World.  One  of 
these  was  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  who  made 
three  voyages  to  America,  finally  being  wrecked 
on  the  third  voyage  homeward,  his  boat  going  to 
the  bottom  with  all  on  board. 

Gilbert's  half-brother  was  Walter  Raleighrand 


6  When  America  Was  New 

to  Raleigh  Queen  Elizabeth  had  given  the  right 
to  colonize  that  great  part  of  the  New  World, 
then  known  as  "  Virginia."  Raleigh  sent  out 
several  expeditions  to  learn  what  sort  of  land  and 
climate  he  had  to  deal  with.  The  earliest  of 
these  expeditions  brought  back  the  report  that 
the  land  was  the  most  plentiful,  sweet,  fruitful, 
and  wholesome  of  all  the  world,  and  that  the  in- 
habitants, the  Indians,  were"  void  of  all  guile  and 
treason  and  such  as  lived  after  the  manner  of  the 
Golden  Age." 

The  next  year  after  receiving  this  glowing  re- 
port Raleigh  sent  seven  ships  and  landed  a  party 
on  Roanoke  Island.  These  men  soon  quarreled 
with  the  Indians,  were  unable  to  get  food,  and 
were  only  too  glad  to  go  home  with  Sir  Francis 
Drake,  who  happened  to  visit  the  island. 

Other  similar  attempts  to  settle  the  land  also 
failed,  and  then  came  the  time  of  the  Armada, 
1588,  when  all  England  was  too  busy  in  defend- 
ing itself  from  the  dreaded  Spanish  expedition  to 
think  of  the  new  lands  across  the  Atlantic. 
After  the  destruction  of  the  great  Spanish  fleet, 
a  few  adventurous  sailors  made  the  voyage  to 
New  England,  and  by  trading  with  the  Indians, 
were  able  to  load  their  ships  with  furs  and  valu- 
able woods,  thus  securing  most  profitable  car- 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  7 

goes.  These  men  reported,  as  the  others  had 
done,  that  America  was  a  beautiful  land  with  a 
mild  climate,  and  that  there  were  many  signs  of 
gold. 

Meanwhile,  Walter  Raleigh,  after  the  death  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  had  fallen  into  disgrace  with 
King  James,  who  was  trying  in  every  way  to 
gain  the  favor  of  Spain,  and  thought  to  please 
the  Spanish  by  punishing  this  old  enemy  of 
theirs.  Raleigh's  rights  in  America  were  taken 
away  from  him,  and  the  King  gave  the  privilege 
of  settling  the  new  country  to  two  companies  of 
merchants,  some  of  whom  lived  about  London 
and  others  near  Plymouth. 

A  play  of  the  time  named  "  Eastward  Ho !  " 
spoke  of  the  territory  of  Virginia  as  a  land 
"  where  gold  and  silver  are  more  plentiful  than 
copper  is  with  us."  These  companies  were 
formed  at  this  time,  just  as  they  are  to-day,  in 
the  hope  of  making  large  profits  by  trading  with 
the  new  countries,  and  one  of  the  countries  from 
which  most  was  expected  was  America.  People 
did  not  think  it  mattered  greatly  that  the  gold 
brought  back  by  the  Spaniards  came  from  much 
further  south  than  the  lands  belonging  to  the 
Virginia  Company. 

Virginia  was  at  first  defined  as  all  the  country 


8  When  America  Was  New 

from  the  thirty- fourth  to  the  forty-fifth  degree  of 
north  latitude,  that  is,  from  the  Cape  Fear  River 
to  the  Bay  of  Fundy.  The  Virginia  Company 
organized  to  settle  this  territory  was  divided  into 
two  branches  according  to  the  place  where  the 
members  lived,  London  and  Plymouth.  To  the 
Londoners  King  James  gave  the  land  between 
Cape  Fear  River  and  the  Potomac ;  to  the  Ply- 
mouth men,  the  land  between  the  Hudson  and 
the  Bay  of  Fundy.  The  strip  between — that  is, 
between  the  Potomac  and  the  Hudson — was  left 
open  as  a  prize  to  whichever  should  first  settle  it ; 
but  it  was  ordered  that  in  this  strip  no  colony 
should  be  planted  nearer  to  an  earlier  one  thari 
one  hundred  miles. 

The  two  branches  of  the  Virginia  Company 
each  sent  out  an  expedition.  The  London  mer- 
chants sent  out  their  expedition  in  midwinter, 
and  the  colonists  reached  Virginia  in  the  spring. 
These  were  the  men  who  began  at  Jamestown. 
The  Plymouth  merchants  sent  their  expedition 
out  in  the  following  summer — May,  1607;  and  so 
the  ships  reached  America  during  a  severe  winter 
season,  and  landed  far  northward  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Kennebec  River  in  Maine.  The  men  built  a 
few  huts,  looked  about  for  signs  of  gold,  found 
the  natives  unfriendly,  and  after  suffering  greatly 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  9 

from  the  cold,  were  glad  to  go  home  though  they 
had  done  nothing.  Their  return  was  in  1608, 
and  they  said  America  was  too  cold  to  live 
in. 

The  Jamestown  expedition,  though  it  was  to 
have  a  hard  time,  was  more  fortunate  in  the  season 
of -sailing.  The  setting  out  was  made  a  great  occa- 
sion in  London.  The  people  of  that  city  showed 
a  patriotic  interest  in  the  three  little  ships  about 
to  sail  to  the  possessions  of  England  in  America. 
The  expedition  meant  that  Spain  was  no  longer 
to  have  her  own  way  on  the  seas,  and  that  the 
English  were  to  share  in  the  riches  that  came 
from  America.  So  crowds  came  to  see  them  off, 
and  services  were  held  in  the  churches  where 
prayers  for  success  were  read.  The  poet  Dray- 
ton  wrote  a  poem  to  celebrate  the  great  event ; 
and  amid  cheers,  the  firing  of  small  cannon,  and 
the  waving  of  banners,  the  three  little  vessels 
bearing  about  a  hundred  settlers  hauled  up  their 
anchors,  and  went  down  the  Thames  to  begin  the 
three  or  four  months'  voyage. 

The  expedition  included  two  experienced  sea- 
captains,  Newport  and  Gosnold,  who  had  already 
made  the  voyage,  and  a  number  of  adventurous 
men  who  were  induced  to  join  the  expedition  in 
the  hope  of  becoming  rich  by  trading  with  the 


1O  When  America  Was  New 

Indians,  finding  gold,  or  discovering  a  passage  to 
India. 

Captain  John  Smith,  though  the  best  of  these, 
may  stand  as  a  type  of  them.  He  had  been 
fairly  well  schooled,  had  gone  to  the  Lowlands  to 
fight  in  an  English  regiment  against  Spain,  from 
there  had  wandered  into  the  East,  and  met  with 
surprising  adventures  in  battle  against  the  Infidels, 
the  Turks.  Although  still  a  young  man,  he  was 
an  old  campaigner,  skilful  in  arms,  fearless,  and 
used  to  rough  work. 

After  the  army  in  which  Smith  was  fighting 
against  the  Turks  had  met  with  a  great  defeat,  he 
had  been  left  wounded  upon  the  battle-field  and 
taken  prisoner.  Carried  away  by  the  Turks,  he 
was  sold  into  slavery,  and  bought  by  a  Turkish 
officer  who  cultivated  a  large  plantation.  Upon 
this  plantation  Smith  became  a  laborer,  wearing 
a  metal  collar  around  his  neck  so  that  he  might 
be  chained  up  if  necessary,  like  a  dog.  He  was 
made  to  do  all  kinds  of  heavy  work,  but  he  never 
lost  his  pluck  and  pride.  One  day  having  been 
beaten  by  his  master,  Smith  struck  him  down, 
took  his  horse,  escaped  from  the  farm,  and  after 
long  wanderings  succeeded  in  reaching  a  Euro- 
pean outpost.  Here  he  was  well  cared  for  and 
helped  on  his  way  back  to  the  Christian  countries. 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  11 

Such  a  training  made  him  used  to  hardship  and 
prepared  him  for  the  rough  life  in  the  New 
World,  and  capable  of  taking  care  of  himself  any- 
where. He  was  also  a  skilled  sailor  and  an  able 
leader,  besides  being  a  man  of  good  character. 
His  books,  written  in  later  years,  tell  us  the  story 
of  the  early  days  in  Virginia,  and  as  time  goes 
on  his  accounts  are  thought  more  trustworthy. 

Another  class  of  men  were  London  citizens, 
men  who  had  a  little  property  of  their  own,  who 
went  on  the  expedition  simply  to  better  their 
circumstances.  With  these  there  went  a  number 
of  worthless  fellows  who  probably  thought  they 
could  do  no  worse  and  might  do  better  than  at 
home,  even  though  they  were  undertaking  a 
perilous  voyage  to  an  unknown  land  to  meet  un- 
known dangers.  They  were  tradesmen  out  of 
work,  runaways  from  trouble  at  home,  poor  fel- 
lows glad  to  make  a  change  for  the  sake  of  a 
change,  and  certainly  not  well  suited  to  do  rough 
work  or  to  bear  hardships. 

They  started  in  December,  1606,  but  because 
of  rough  weather  did  not  really  get  to  sea  until 
February.  Then  they  took  a  roundabout  way, 
probably  for  the  purpose  of  refilling  their  water- 
casks  and  getting  green  vegetables — a  most  im- 
portant matter  since  the  use  of  salt  food  and  bis- 


12  When  America  Was  New 

cuit  alone  was  almost  sure  to  bring  on  the  ter- 
rible disease  known  as  the  scurvy,  from  which 
sailors  in  those  days  nearly  always  suffered  on 
long  voyages.  There  must  have  been  some 
reason  for  thus  lengthening  their  voyage  since 
Captain  Gosnold  five  years  before  had  sailed 
straight  across  to  Massachusetts  and  knew  how 
much  distance  and  time  could  thus  be  saved. 

But  one  trouble  that  led  to  others  was  the  ab- 
sence of  any  well  laid  plans  known  to  those  on 
the  ships.  They  had  with  them  a  sealed  box, 
containing  instructions,  but  this  was  not  to  be 
opened  until  they  came  to  the  American  coast. 
So  they  did  not  know  who  were  to  be  the  officers 
of  the  colony,  nor  what  the  merchants  at  home 
wished  them  to  do. 

During  the  four  months'  voyage,  the  rough 
weather,  poor  food,  and  hard  work  tried  their 
tempers,  and  made  them  quarrelsome.  They 
saw  a  meteor  or  "  blazing  star,"  and  were  not 
surprised  that  a  big  storm  followed  ;  but  at  last 
without  any  great  mishap  anchored  near  the  Is- 
land Dominica  (San  Domingo),  where  Indians 
came  out  in  canoes  and  traded  fruits  and  some 
cloths  taken  from  a  Spanish  wreck  for  knives, 
beads,  and  copper  jewelry.  The  Englishmen 
landed,  but  the  natives  ashore  ran  away  from  them. 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  13 

Then  they  turned  northward  and  after  a  ter- 
rible storm  at  last  came  in  sight  of  the  Virginia 
shore — which  was  bright  with  dogwood  blossoms 
and  redbud  in  bloom.  The  shore  showed  "  fair 
meadows  and  goodly  tall  trees,"  and  they  were 
especially  delighted  to  see  streams  of  fresh 
water,  for  they  had  been  sixteen  days  under  the 
hot  sun,  and  (unless  they  had  saved  the  rain 
water)  had  not  refilled  their  water-casks. 

When  the  party  landed,  the  list  of  them  in- 
cluded but  few  useful  tradesmen.  There  were 
four  carpenters,  one  blacksmith,  one  tailor,  a 
bricklayer  and  a  mason.  But  besides  these  use- 
ful men,  there  were  also  a  barber  and  a  drummer, 
fifty-five  "  gentlemen  "  (that  is,  men  who  claimed 
gentility,  and  could  probably  do  little  useful 
work),  four  boys,  and  twelve  put  down  as 
" laborers." 

They  made  a  mistake  at  the  beginning  by  set- 
tling upon  a  bit  of  lowland  near  the  river,  but  this 
was  because  the  ships  could  be  brought  near  the 
shore,  and  probably  for  safety  from  the  Indians, 
who  already  had  learned  that  the  white  men  were 
to  be  feared.  Several  Indians  had  been  kidnapped 
by  former  expeditions  and  carried  abroad,  and 
former  settlers  in  this  same  region  had  so  treated 
the  Indians  as  to  excite  their  distrust. 


14  When  America  Was  New 

The  colonists  planted  a  number  of  vegetables, 
but  showed  how  little  they  intended  to  rely 
upon  farming  for  a  living  by  spending  much  of 
their  time  in  collecting  glittering  sand  that  they 
supposed  was  gold  ore.  They  expected  to  re- 
ceive supplies  from  England. 

They  built  themselves  rough  houses,  roofed 
with  reeds  or  bark,  and  put  up  a  few  tents.  The 
poorer  men  were  content  to  live  in  holes  dug  in 
the  ground.  The  sailors  who  brought  them  over, 
stayed  for  a  time  to  gather  the  supposed  "  gold 
ore "  and  consumed  the  settlers'  provisions  un- 
til the  whole  party  had  to  be  put  upon  short 
rations  of  worm-eaten  barley  or  wheat,  each 
man  receiving  a  pint  a  day. 

Drinking  the  river  water,  watching  against 
Indian  attacks,  and  the  exposure,  to  which  only 
a  few  of  them  were  used,  brought  on  fevers  and 
other  illnesses,  so  that  at  times  not  more  than 
four  or  five  men  were  well  enough  to  carry 
arms.  Half  of  the  party  died,  and  the  rest  were 
saved  only  by  trading  for  provisions  with  the 
Indians. 

The  salvation  of  the  colony  was  due  to  Cap- 
tain John  Smith.  As  a  soldier  he  had  learned 
the  value  of  discipline,  and  he  made  rules  that 
kept  the  men  at  work,  threatening  to  banish  from 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  15 

the  settlement  those  who  were  idle  or  did  not 
obey  orders. 

There  were  great  differences  between  these 
men  and  the  Pilgrims.  These  had  suffered  no 
wrongs  to  drive  them  from  home,  they  agreed 
with  the  rulers  in  their  opinions,  and  they  went 
out  with  the  good  wishes  of  rich  merchants  who 
hoped  to  profit  by  their  labors  in  the  New 
World.  But  the  directions  given  for  managing 
a  colony  had  been  very  poorly  contrived.  A 
set  of  rules  drawn  up  in  London  was  meant  to 
govern  all  their  affairs,  and  whenever  any  of  the 
party  thought  that  he  was  being  wrongly  treated 
by  the  men  in  authority  he  would  appeal  to  these 
rules  against  the  governors  of  the  colony,  and 
this  made  endless  squabbles. 

Their  officers  were  a  president  and  a  council. 
The  first  two  presidents  proved  to  be  very  poor 
managers,  and  affairs  were  in  a  bad  way  until 
Smith  came  into  control.  Smith  was  wise 
enough  to  try  to  find  out  about  the  country  that 
lay  near  them  and  in  a  little  boat  they  had  built, 
he  sailed  up  the  rivers,  making  peace  with  the 
Indians  on  the  shores  and  treating  with  them  for 
food. 

The  exploring  of  the  country  had  been 
specially  ordered  by  those  who  drew  up  the 


16  When  America  Was  New 

orders  for  the  guidance  of  the  colonists,  because 
they  hoped  that  in  the  course  of  examining  the 
country  the  explorers  might  be  fortunate  enough 
to  find  the  wished-for  passage  to  India. 

Other  settlers  came  until  Smith  was  at  the 
head  of  more  than  five  hundred  men.  All  the 
property  was,  so  far,  held  in  common,  and  all 
were  expected  to  work  for  earnings  to  be  put 
into  the  common  store.  There  were  very  few 
women  among  them  for  the  first  few  years,  so 
the  settlement,  although  it  consisted  of  fifty  or 
sixty  houses  and  a  church,  really  contained  al- 
most no  homes.  It  was  much  like  a  frontier 
fort,  kept  up  for  the  purpose  of  trading  and  ex- 
ploring. 

From  a  letter  of  Captain  John  Smith's  we 
learn  that  the  products  of  the  Jamestown  Colony 
at  first  were  pitch,  tar,  soap- ashes,  timber,  some 
iron  ore,  and  other  such  products  as  they  could 
obtain  from  the  forests. 

From  the  same  letter  we  learn  that  the  settle- 
ment was  fortified  with  a  tall  palisade  and  de- 
fended by  twenty-four  small  cannon  of  different 
sizes.  He  also  mentions  a  number  of  horses, 
five  or  six  hundred  swine,  and  "  many  more 
powltry." 

The   colonists,  according  to  Captain    Smith, 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  17 

seem  to  have  been  very  well  provisioned  and 
supplied  in  1609,  when  the  Captain  left  them, 
which  goes  to  show  that  their  poverty  within  a 
few  months  afterward  came  from  idleness  or  lack 
of  good  management. 

So  long  as  the  men  worked  only  at  the  cutting 
of  timber,  the  finding  of  gold,  or  gave  their  time 
to  trading  for  animal  pelts,  the  colony  could  not 
greatly  prosper,  for  it  could  not  be  self-support- 
ing. The  things  with  which  they  bought  supplies 
from  the  Indians  and  traded  for  goods  had  to  be 
sent  from  England.  Neither  could  there  be 
much  made  in  this  trade,  since  the  cost  and 
trouble  of  conveying  goods  across  the  ocean 
from  and  to  England  was  sure  to  eat  up  the 
profits. 

All  this  led  the  merchants  at  home  to  listen  to 
the  grumbling  of  mischief-makers  against  Smith, 
and  he  was  deposed  from  his  office.  Soon  after, 
having  been  injured  by  an  explosion  of  gun- 
powder, he  had  to  return  to  England. 

When  Smith  had  left  the  colonists  to  them- 
selves everything  went  to  quick  ruin.  Crops 
and  work  were  neglected,  their  fort  was  allowed 
to  fall  into  decay,  there  was  no  good  manage- 
ment of  their  stores,  and  famine  and  disease  des- 
troyed of  five  hundred  inhabitants  all  but  sixty. 


i8  When  America  Was  New 

These  few  resolved  to  give  up  the  colony,  and 
two  ships  coming  from  England  with  but  four- 
teen days'  provisions,  they  went  aboard  and 
started  down  the  river  to  the  ocean. 

But  hardly  had  they  reached  the  ocean  when 
they  met  a  vessel  bringing  a  new  governor,  Lord 
Delaware,  and  more  settlers.  The  new  governor, 
though  not  in  all  ways  well  fitted  for  his  place, 
was  yet  a  just  and  kindly  man  and  brought  back 
some  prosperity  to  the  abandoned  town.  After 
a  few  months  this  governor  was  taken  ill,  re- 
turned to  England,  and  was  succeeded  by  Sir 
Thomas  Dale.  Dale  was  a  hard-hearted  old 
soldier,  cruel  and  miserly,  but  it  happened  that 
the  colony  needed  a  man  who  would  rule  them 
with  a  rod  of  iron.  Although  the  men  under 
him  worked  as  convicts  might  work  in  a  prison 
and  were  brutally  abused,  yet  they  learned  the 
value  of  order  and  industry,  and  from  the  time  of 
Dale's  governorship  the  colony  began  to  prosper. 

Other  governors  followed.  Some  of  them 
were  mild,  and  others  were  little  better  than 
thieves  and  cutthroats ;  but  since  the  colony  was 
kept  alive  only  by  sending  new  men  into  it,  from 
England,  it  mattered  at  first  little  how  it  was 
governed. 

The   great   benefit  that  came  from  Governor 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  19 

Dale  was  a  change  in  the  way  of-  giving  to  set- 
tlers rights  in  their  farms.  At  first,  as  has  been 
said,  the  land  was  owned  in  common  by  all  and 
so  there  was  nothing  to  be  gained  by  any 
colonist  for  himself  through  industry.  Fisher, 
in  his  "  Men,  Women,  and  Manners  in  Colonial 
Times,"  says  :  "  A  man  could  not  gain  and  have 
a  home  for  himself  by  clearing  and  cultivating  the 
land  ;  he  had  no  family  to  inspire  his  exertions ; 
he  lived  only  for  himself  and  for  the  present,  and 
therefore  he  lived  from  hand  to  mouth,  from  day 
to  day." 

After  Dale  had  divided  the  land  among  the 
settlers,  affairs  improved,  but  he  had  given  the 
separate  farms  of  three  acres  each  to  only  a  very 
few,  and  for  the  most  part  the  colonists  were  left 
without  any  hope  of  bettering  themselves  by  hard 
work. 

In  the  year  before  Plymouth  was  begun,  1619, 
one  of  the  English  merchants,  Sir  Edwin  Sandys, 
realized  that  there  could  be  no  success  for  James- 
town until  wives  were  provided  for  the  settlers  ; 
and  he  sent  over  a  shipload  of  young  women, 
leaving  each  free  to  marry  whom  she  chose,  pro- 
vided the  chosen  husband  should  pay  the  ex- 
penses of  her  outfit  and  her  journey  over  the 
seas.  There  were  ninety  of  these  young  women, 


2O  When  America  Was  New 

and  after  they  had  been  only  a  short  time  in  the 
colony  they  found  themselves  so  well  pleased 
with  their  husbands  that  they  wrote  letters  home 
which  induced  sixty  more  young  women  to  fol- 
low their  example. 

Although  Sir  Edwin  Sandys  was  thus  the 
saviour  of  the  colony  by  his  wise  counsels,  he 
never  came  to  America.  His  nephew,  George 
Sandys,  noted  as  a  poet  and  writer,  made  the 
voyage  and  acted  as  secretary  to  the  colony.  Of 
him  we  are  told  that  he  believed  a  route  could  be 
found  to  the  Pacific  by  traveling  overland,  and 
that  he  was  willing  to  risk  his  life  in  making  the 
attempt.  That  he  was  something  besides  a  poet 
is  evident,  since  he  was  appointed  fo  have  es- 
pecial control  over  all  schemes  for  raising  "  staple 
commodities,"  among  which  were  to  be  pine- 
apples, plantains,  and  other  fruits,  and  establish- 
ments for  carrying  on  the  silk  industry. 

When  once  the  owning  of  plots  of  land,  and 
the  coming  o'f  the  women,  had  caused  the 
colonists  to  look  upon  Jamestown  as  their  real 
home,  the  Virginia  settlement  began  to  succeed. 
Within  a  very  short  time  there  were  several 
thousand  inhabitants  in  Jamestown  and  these  later 
comers  were  men  of  a  far  higher  class  than  made 
up  the  earlier  expeditions. 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  21 

There  were  in  England  at  the  time  agents  who 
made  it  their  business  to  tell  people  what  was 
needed  to  fit  them  for  the  new  life  in  America. 
There  is  an  old  letter  written  to  a  lady  whose  son  in- 
tended to  go  to  Virginia,  explaining  what  was  nec- 
essary to  provide  in  going  to  Jamestown.  One 
of  the  main  things  seemed  to  be  an  ample  supply 
of  bedding,  a  feather  bed,  blankets,  bolsters,  pillows 
and  so  on,  being  especially  named.  The  broker 
who  writes  this  letter  explains  that  whereas  there 
is  plenty  of  food  in  Virginia,  it  will  be  necessary 
for  a  newcomer  to  provide  cloth  and  clothing. 
Others  things  mentioned  are  guns,  groceries,  and 
corn,  "  which  is  apt  to  be  scarce,"  the  broker  says, 
"  because  the  planters  desire  to  give  so  much  of 
their  land  up  to  cultivating  tobacco." 

A  most  important  matter  in  the  story  of  the 
Jamestown  Colony  is  the  granting  of  what  is 
known  as  the  "  Great  Charter."  Seeing  how 
badly  affairs  were  going  in  the  colony,  some  of 
the  wiser  of  the  London  merchants  who  were  in- 
terested in  making  it  a  success  thought  it  would 
be  best  to  allow  the  colonists  to  govern  them- 
selves, so  far  as  that  were  possible,  and  they  drew 
up  this  charter,  a  paper  letting  the  colonists  elect 
men  to  govern  them.  Those  who  drew  it  up,  also 
took  care  to  limit  the  power  of  the  governor  of 


22  When  America  Was  New 

the  colony,  though  they  left  him  power  enough 
to  keep  things  in  order. 

In  the  same  charter  the  dividing  of  the  land 
was  carried  further,  a  farm  or  plantation  being 
given  to  every  colonist  who  had  arrived  before 
the  departure  of  Governor  Dale.  This  helped  to 
make  the  men  hard  workers,  since  an  ambitious 
man  felt  that  he  could  better  himself  by  every 
hour  of  work  on  his  own  plantation.  Besides,  it 
began  to  be  understood  in  England  what  sort  of 
men  made  good  colony  builders. 

Edward  Eggleston,  in  his  "  Beginners  of  a 
Nation,"  quotes  from  Bacon's  essay  on  "  Planta- 
tions "  a  sentence  declaring  that  it  is  "  a  shameful 
and  unblessed  thing  to  take  the  scum  of  people 
and  wicked,  condemned  men,  to  be  the  people 
with  whom  you  plant."  A  little  later  Bacon  de- 
clares :  "  The  people  wherewith  you  plant  ought 
to  be  gardeners,  plowmen,  laborers,  smiths,  car- 
penters, joiners,  fishermen,  fowlers,  with  some  few 
apothecaries,  surgeons,  cooks  and  bakers."  In- 
deed, this  essay  of  Francis  Bacon  contains  in  a  few 
words  advice  and  counsels  that  if  they  had  been 
heeded  would  have  been  the  salvation  of  the  early 
colonists  in  Virginia.  But  since  the  essay  was 
published  in  1625,  it  very  likely  is  simply  a  gen- 
eral statement  of  the  lessons  learned  from  the 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  23 

experiences  of  the  Virginia  Colony  during  the 
dark  and  trying  beginning. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  very  first  prosperity  in 
Virginia  came  from  giving  large  tracts  of  land  to 
the  earlier  colonists.  Naturally  enough,  these 
men  found  that  their  farms  or  plantations  became 
more  and  more  valuable  when  later  comers  of 
better  character  arrived  from  England.  Once 
the  farms  were  in  the  hands  of  men  who  had  the 
right  to  sell  them,  it  was  not  very  many  years 
before  this  land  passed  into  the  ownership  of  rich 
men  from  the  old  country  who  saw  that  much 
money  was  to  be  made  by  raising  tobacco  and 
sending  it  home.  The  first  to  plant  tobacco  was 
John  Rolfe,  the  man  who  married  Pocahontas  ; 
and  the  crop  succeeded  so  well,  and  sold  for 
such  high  prices  that  every  one  planted  tobacco- 
plants. 

Nearly  all  the  tobacco  that  was  used  in  Eng- 
land had  been  imported  from  the  West  Indies, 
but  after  it  was  found  that  the  soil  of  Virginia 
would  yield  large  crops  of  tobacco  of  good 
quality,  and  yield  them  with  little  work,  the  price 
of  land  in  the  colony  became  very  high.  Every 
possible  spot  where  tobacco-plants  could  be  set 
was  made  use  of.  At  times  even  the  streets  were 
planted  at  the  sides  with  thriving  crops  of  to- 


24  When  America  Was  New 

bacco.  Tobacco  even  took  the  place  of  money, 
which  was  very  scarce. 

Men  who  owned  fair-sized  plantations  were 
made  rich  by  the  valuable  crop.  As  soon  as 
each  crop  was  sold,  they  could  use  the  money  to 
get  other  land  and  so  plant  a  larger  plantation. 
There  was  no  lack  of  men  to  work  on  the  planta- 
tions, for  many  poor  people  had  come  from 
England  in  the  hope  of  doing  better  in  Virginia, 
and  these  men  often  made  a  written  agreement 
to  work  for  a  number  of  years  to  pay  for  the  ex- 
pense of  bringing  them  across  the  ocean.  The 
paper  such  men  signed  was  known  as  an  "  inden- 
ture," and  the  workers  so  bound  were  called  "  in- 
dentured servants."  Besides  these,  there  were 
men  who  had  been  sent  out  from  England  as  a 
punishment.  These  came  to  the  colony  without 
any  means  of  making  a  living  except  by  hiring 
themselves  out  to  the  planters. 

The  men  who  found  so  much  profit  in  work- 
ing the  plantations  were  glad  to  buy  land  and 
make  their  plantations  larger,  and  so  the  size  of 
the  great  tracts  owned  by  planters  kept  on  in- 
creasing ;  and  those  who  had  smaller  plantations 
could  not  afford  to  sell  their  crops  at  so  low  a 
price,  and  thus  were  driven  out  of  the  market. 
The  men  in  England  who  had  the  right  to  grant 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  25 

lands  in  Virginia  also  favored  the  making  of 
large  estates,  and  offered  the  best  terms  to  rich 
men  who  would  undertake  to  carry  on  these  large 
plantations.  In  fact,  the  conditions  in  the 
Southern  colonies  from  the  very  beginning  were 
very  much  like  those  in  the  middle  ages,  when 
one  lord  owned  vast  tracts  of  land  which  he 
rented  to  a  number  of  tenants.  These  tenants 
paid  him  a  rental  for  the  use  of  the  land,  either 
in  money  or  in  work,  or  by  giving  part  of  the 
crops,  and  they  also  were  required  to  be  ready  at 
his  call  to  come  prepared  with  arms  when  the 
Indians  threatened  the  settlers. 

Some  of  the  proprietors  in  England  believed 
that  it  would  be  wise  to  bring  about  the  making 
of  smaller  farms,  and  in  Carolina,  Maryland,  and 
Georgia,  during  colonial  times,  very  favorable 
terms  of  settlement  were  offered  to  men  who 
would  take  plots  no  larger  than  about  a  hundred 
acres.  But  these  plans  were  not  a  success.  The 
soil,  the  climate,  and  the  ways  of  trade,  suited 
best  the  working  of  large  farms,  and  throughout 
the  southern  region  the  smaller  farms  failed,  for 
the  most  part,  while  the  owners  of  great  planta- 
tions became  rich  and  kept  on  enlarging  their 
possessions. 

In  this  way  it  happened  that  before  long  the 


26  When  America  Was  New 

people  of  the  Virginia  colony  began  to  divide  up 
into  two  great  classes,  namely,  the  land-owners 
and  their  families,  and  the  people  who  had  no 
land  and  must  work  for  a  living.  Once  started, 
this  state  of  things  increased  and  the  land  went 
more  and  more  into  the  hands  of  a  few  rich 
owners,  and  it  became  very  difficult  for  new- 
comers to  lay  up  enough  of  their  earnings  to  buy 
a  place  among  the  land-owners,  for  land  near  the 
settlements  was  high  in  price. 

Because  the  work  of  the  great  farms  was  car- 
ried on  almost  entirely  by  bonded  servants,  and 
later  by  slaves,  who  were  looked  after  by  agents, 
the  people  who  owned  these  farms  had  much 
leisure,  and  being  fond  of  company,  there  was 
much  entertaining  among  the  residents  in  the  big 
houses.  Visitors  to  the  Virginia  Colony  were 
often  surprised  to  see  how  much  wealth  and 
luxury  there  were  in  the  life  of  the  planters. 
There  were,  of  course,  few  chances  for  investing 
money,  and  so  more  was  spent  in  house-fitting, 
in  furnishing,  in  silverware,  and  in  dress,  than  in 
a  community  given  to  manufacturing  or  great 
business  enterprises. 

The  first  introduction  of  negro  slavery  into  the 
Virginia  Colony  was  in  August,  1619,  when  a 
Dutch  ship  came  by  chance  and  brought  about 


The  Planting  of  Virginia  27 

twenty  negroes  and  put  them  up  for  sale.  But 
for  the  next  fifty  years  the  negro  laborers  were 
very  few,  most  of  the  work  being  done  by  white 
servants  brought  from  England.  Of  course,  in 
those  days  slavery  was  practiced  nearly  every- 
where, and  only  a  very  few  deeply  thinking  or 
eccentric  men  believed  slavery  to  be  wrong. 
Except  for  the  opinions  of  a  few  individuals, 
there  was  no  opposition  to  slavery  until  the 
Quakers  declared  it  to  be  wrong  and  began  to 
work  against  it  toward  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  that  is,  between  1670  and  1700. 
Slave  labor  seemed  well  adapted  to  the  planta- 
tions of  the  South,  but  even  there  it  was  not  until 
a  later  period  that  slaves  became  numerous  in 
America. 

Yet  before  slavery  had  been  introduced  there 
was  a  sharp  and  clear  division  in  Virginia  between 
the  higher  and  lower  classes — the  owners  of 
plantations,  and  the  workers  who  served  them. 
As  at  home  in  England,  so  in  the  New  World, 
the  aristocratic  rich  kept  to  themselves,  and  the 
poorer  classes  were  not  recognized  as  equals.  The 
way  of  life  in  the  Virginia  settlements  favored 
this  division,  and  there  was  not  the  same  mingling 
that  was  brought  about  in  more  northern  colonies, 
where  the  whole  community  was  likely  to  be 


28  When  America  Was  New- 

made  up  of  men  taking  care  of  small  farms,  and 
each  working  for  himself  and  his  family. 

The  difference  between  the  northern  and  the 
southern  settlements  in  America,  therefore,  at 
this  time,  depended  upon  the  amount  of  money 
that  could  be  made  by  tilling  the  soil  and  upon 
the  hands  into  which  this  money  went.  Virginia 
became  used  to  a  state  of  things  where  a  few  rich 
men  held  the  right  to  the  land  and  controlled  the 
government.  The  New  Englander  became  used 
to  a  state  of  things  where  men  were  very  much 
on  an  equality,  and  even  the  possession  of  a  little 
more  money  than  one's  neighbors  brought  only  a 
trifling  advantage  over  them. 


CHAPTER  II 

•   i  ••     .  .  ' 

THE  FIRST  NEW  ENGLANDERS 

THE  first  true  permanent  settlers  of  our 
land,  the  first  families  who  came  to 
make  it  their  home,  were  the  "  Pil- 
grims," the  English  families  who  came  to 
America  from  Holland.  These  men  brought 
with  them  all  their  possessions.  Their  wives  and 
children  came  too,  and  they  meant  to  stay  and 
make  homes  in  the  new  land.  They  were  simple 
folk,  not  rich  nor  clever,  nor  very  learned.  They 
came  to  America  for  good  reasons.  In  the  first 
place  they  wanted  churches  of  their  own,  because 
they  did  not  believe  in  the  regular  English  church, 
and  they  were  not  allowed  to  stay  away  from  its 
services,  or  to  hold  meetings  of  their  own  for 
worship.  They  made  up  their  minds  to  go  to 
Holland  where  others  of  their  kind  had  gone  be- 
fore them,  and  after  one  or  two  failures  they  es- 
caped the  King's  officers,  stole  secretly  away, 
sailed  to  Amsterdam,  and  there  found  homes  in 
the  poorer  parts  of  the  city,  making  a  living  at 
various  trades  and  callings. 
29 


30  When  America  Was  New 

But  though  the  Pilgrims  made  a  living  and 
were  kindly  treated,  they  did  not  do  well,  and 
there  were  many  religious  disputes  and  quarrels 
among  the  other  English  people  who  had  come 
there  before  them.  So  the  Pilgrims  removed  to 
Leyden,  and  there  found  peace,  but  little  pros- 
perity. Life  was  hard,  and  when  they  saw  their 
young  people  growing  up  to  speak  Dutch,  to 
learn  Dutch  ways,  to  spend  part  of  Sundays  in 
sports  and  games,  the  leading  men  decided  to 
settle  in  a  new  land,  where  they  could  remain 
English  and  could  live  and  believe  as  they 
thought  right. 

Where  to  go  was  the  next  question.  The 
Dutch  offered  to  settle  them  in  Zealand  or  in  New 
Amsterdam — the  trading  post  on  Manhattan  Is- 
land. Sir  Walter  Raleigh  had  written  a  book 
about  South  America,  and  some  thought  it  would 
be  wise  to  settle  there.  Others  wished  to  go  to 
Virginia,  but  to  this  it  was  objected  by  others 
that  the  English  Church  was  established  there  by 
law. 

At  last  they  decided  to  ask  for  a  place  in  the 
Virginia  territory,  with  the  King's  permission  to 
have  their  own  church ;  and  two  men  were  sent 
to  England  for  this  purpose.  The  King  con- 
sented after  much  urging,  and  a  hard  bargain  was 


r^crv ^ — \  \          //   •  ^s  vv  «r z  2  v^ 

J#  /-^y^^-jr^VAlx:R.^-^tr 


a^d     ^ 

^bcir 

^ 


MAP  II. 

i--*- E-          ENGLISH  GRANTS 
1606-1732. 


L.POATES  ENSfl'G  CO..  I 


The  First  New  Englanders          31 

made  with  the  men  who  had  charge  of  the  Vir- 
ginia Companies. 

Then  began  the  question  who  should  go  to 
prepare  the  homes  for  the  rest,  and  the  youngest 
and  strongest  volunteered.  Two  ships  were 
bought,  the  property  of  all  was  put  together, 
and  they  made  ready  for  the  voyage.  ,  Going  by 
boat  from  Ley  den  to  Delftshaven,  they  here  bade 
good-bye  to  their  friends,  went  aboard  the  little 
Speedwell,  and  as  those  who  came  to  say  farewell 
fell  on  their  knees  while  the  minister  John  Robin- 
son gave  them  his  blessing,  the  ship  left  the  pier, 
and  they  sailed  on  their  way  to  England  where 
they  were  to  meet  the  Mayflower — a  larger  ves- 
sel. She  had  sailed  from  London  to  Southamp- 
ton to  await  them. 

As  they  left  the  shore,  the  sailors  fired  three 
little  cannon  ;  then  those  on  shore  waved  their 
hands,  as  long  as  the  ship  was  in  sight,  and  the 
first  home-makers  had  begun  their  voyage  to- 
ward the  unknown  future  in  a  new  land. 

Arriving  at  Southampton,  they  found  the 
Mayflower  awaiting  them — a  queer  tub- like 
vessel,  high  at  prow  and  stern.  But'  they  must 
wait  for  a  favorable  wind  and  settled  weather, 
and  meanwhile  they  were  "  kindly  entertained  and 
courteously  used  by  divers  friends  there  dwelling." 


j2  When  America  Was  New 

Among  the  things  that  caused  the  Pilgrims  to 
come  to  America  besides  the  wish  to  find  re- 
ligious freedom,  we  must  give  plenty  of  weight 
to  their  expectation  of  doing  better  for  them- 
selves and  their  children.  Their  lives  in  Holland 
had  been  hard,  they  could  earn  little,  and  could 
see  no  future  for  themselves  and  their  families. 
In  giving  the  reasons  why  the  Pilgrims  left  Hol- 
land and  sought  new  homes,  their  Governor 
William  Bradford  puts  first  the  hope  of  an  easier 
living  than  they  had  found  in  Holland,  which, 
as  he  tells  us, "  they  sought  and  found  by  experi- 
ence to  be  such  as  few  in  comparison  would 
come  to  them,  and  fewer  still  would  bide  it  out." 

Other  of  the  newcomers  across  the  Atlantic 
were  driven  from  England  because  there  was 
little  chance  of  finding  work  at  home.  During 
Queen  Elizabeth's  time  England  became  well 
known  in  Europe  as  the  country  from  which  the 
best  wool  was  to  be  had.  English  wool  sold  at 
high  prices  and  gave  good  profits  to  sheep  owners, 
better  profits  than  were  made  by  farming.  For 
this  reason,  many  of  those  who  owned  land 
changed  from  raising  grain  and  vegetables  to 
running  sheep  farms.  Many  a  field  that  had 
long  been  plowed  was  now  turned  into  grazing 
meadows  for  flocks  of  sheep,  and  since  a  few 


The  First  New  Englanders          33 

men  could  look  after  large  flocks  of  sheep, 
many  farm  laborers  were  turned  away  to  make 
room  for  a  few  shepherds.  In  the  country 
districts  there  were  "  hard  times  "  and  much  dis- 
tress. 

Of  course  where  many  seek  to  be  hired,  men 
will  work  for  low  wages,  and  this  makes  the 
laboring-classes  poor.  There  were  in  England 
at  this  time  a  large  number  of  men  who  had 
been  soldiers  fighting  in  Holland,  and  these, 
when  war  ceased,  also  had  to  seek  work  and  thus 
lessened  wages.  The  laws  against  beggars  were 
cruelly  strict,  and  as  "  beggars  "  were  classed  all 
who  had  no  regular  employment. 

In  reading  the  life  of  Captain  John  Smith  we 
see  how,  after  long  campaigns  abroad,  he  re- 
turned to  England  without  any  property  or  way 
of  supporting  himself,  though  he  was  an  officer, 
a  man  of  good  family,  and  some  accomplish- 
ments. The  private  soldier,  as  soon  as  peace 
was  declared,  became  little  better  than  a  vaga- 
bond. Myles  Standish,  also  a  captain  like  Smith, 
had  served  in  the  Lowlands  and  returned  home, 
having  nothing  wherewith  to  make  his  way  in 
the  world  except  his  sword. 

Of  course  in  England  there  were  not  many 
kinds  of  work  to  which  unskilled  men  could 


34  When  America  Was  New 

turn  their  hands.  For  the  trades,  boys  were 
trained  by  long  years  of  apprenticeship.  The 
demand  for  unskilled  laborers  on  the  farms  was 
more  than  filled,  and  since  times  were  hard  there 
was  almost  no  outdoor  work  done  that  employed 
laborers. 

Little  of  the  land  was  then  used  for  farming 
even  in  the  best  times,  only  about  one-quarter 
of  what  is  so  used  to-day ;  the  rest  had  not  been 
cleared  of  trees,  was  boggy,  or  remained  as  open 
fields  called  "  commons,"  belonging  to  the  towns 
and  villages  generally.  On  these  commons  a 
few  animals  were  pastured,  but  it  was  no  one's 
business  to  see  that  such  lands  were  looked  after. 
Landowners  were  constantly  trying  to  get  the 
right  to  enclose  these  commons  without  paying 
the  people  for  them.  The  men  driven  by  lack 
of  work  into  the  towns  did  not  find  ready  em- 
ployment there.  The  trades  were  in  the  hands 
of  guilds  or  societies,  who  were  jealous  of  ad- 
mitting new  members.  The  entire  right  to  sell 
many  common  articles  had  been  granted  to 
noblemen,  and  trade  in  these  could  not  be 
carried  on  without  the  payment  of  heavy  taxes 
to  these  owners  of  rights  granted  from  the 
Crown.  Edwin  Goadby,  in  a  carefully  written 
little  book  on  "  The  England  of  Shakespeare " 


The  First  New  Englanders          35 

says,  in  general,  that  industry  was  much  de- 
pressed and  towns  were  decaying. 

Nor  did  England  have  to  provide  only  for  her 
own  people.  Long  religious  wars  in  Europe 
had  sent  many  emigrants  across  the  sea  into 
England,  and  though  these  men  were  to  be- 
come in  time  a  great  benefit,  at  first  they  only 
made  it  harder  for  the  native  English  to  find 
work. 

Of  course,  when  to  the  English  merchant  there 
came  two  young  fellows  asking  for  work,  and 
one  of  them,  though  a  foreigner,  was  able  to 
show  great  skill  and  knowledge  which  he  had 
learned  abroad  where  tradesmen  did,  at  that 
time,  better  work  than  the  English,  this  foreigner 
was  likely  to  be  hired  and  the  Englishman  turned 
away.  Nor  could  the  poor  fellow  go  from  factory 
to  factory  in  the  hope  of  finding  a  place.  There 
were,  then,  few  kinds  of  work  from  which  to 
choose.  Instead  of  great  shoe  factories,  as  to- 
day, they  had  but  the  village  cobbler.  Cloth 
was  not  turned  out  by  great  mills,  but  woven  on 
cottage  looms.  People  usually  raised  on  their 
grounds  what  they  ate,  and  all  sorts  of  handi- 
work were  carried  on  rather  in  the  home  than  in 
great  shops. 

Many  employments   that  now  give  work  to 


36  When  America  Was  New 

thousands,  then  either  did  not  exist  or  were  in 
their  infancy.  Coal  was  yet  a  new  thing,  and 
there  were  mines  worked  in  only  a  few  places. 
Besides  the  monopolies  granted  by  the  Crown, 
there  was  a  constant  meddling  by  royal  orders, 
licenses  and  grants,  that  prevented  merchants 
from  carrying  on  their  business  profitably.  All 
these  things,  by  making  it  hard  for  merchants  to 
prosper,  kept  them  from  employing  workers,  and 
consequently  for  a  great  part  of  the  English  peo- 
ple life  was  a  long  struggle  to  make  both  ends 
meet. 

When  such  was  the  condition  of  affairs  at 
home,  we  can  see  how  tempting  to  Englishmen 
were  the  prospects  abroad.  The  plays  of  the 
time,  which  in  a  way  took  the  place  of  our  news- 
papers, were  constantly  bringing  before  crowded 
audiences  the  great  wealth  to  be  had  by  simply 
crossing  the  ocean.  In  the  play,  "  Eastward 
Ho  ! "  of  which  Ben  Jonson  was  one  of  the 
authors,  a  character  is  made  to  say,  speaking  of 
the  natives  of  America:  "They  have  in  their 
houses  scoops,  buckets  and  divers  other  vessels  of 
massive  silver,"  and  in  a  "  Dialogue  against  the 
Fever  Pestilence,"  one  of  the  speakers  declares 
"  that  their  pots,  pans,  and  other  vessels  are  clean 
gold  garnished  with  diamonds."  In  fact,  some  of 


The  First  New  Englanders          37 

the  old  stories  once  told  of  the  riches  of  Oriental 
lands  were  now  made  over  to  fit  the  new  western 
country.  Many  of  the  common  folk,  having 
heard  of  the  vast  sums  of  gold  the  Spanish  ships 
brought  home  from  the  West  Indies,  found  it 
easy  to  believe  that  in  America  gold  and  silver 
were  even  commoner  than  such  base  metals  as 
copper  in  England.  They  believed  that  upon 
landing  they  would  come  at  once  upon  tribes  of 
ignorant  Indians  ready  to  give  them  in  exchange 
for  cheap  goods  such  as  cloths,  knives,  beads,  or 
for  ordinary  farm  implements,  handfuls  of  gold 
and  precious  stones.  They  believed  also  that 
this  new  land  was  full  of  wonders  and  contained 
delicious  fruits,  rich  mines,  and  possibly  springs 
and  plants  of  magical  properties. 

Even  the  common  people,  who  could  seldom 
read,  heard  much  talk  of  the  New  World  and  its 
wonders.  They  knew  of  the  capture  by  English 
sea-captains  of  great  Spanish  treasure-ships, 
"  galleons,"  loaded  with  gold,  silver  and  precious 
stones,  from  the  Indies.  They  heard  the  wonder- 
tales  of  travelers,  of  the  rich  empires  over  the 
seas. 

And  among  the  better  classes  who  could  read, 
books  of  travel,  such  as  "  Hakluyt's  Voyages," 
were  very  popular,  and  were  filled  with  the  do- 


38  When  America  Was  New 

ings  of  adventurous  men, — Spanish,  Portuguese, 
English,  or  Dutch, — and  with  the  accounts  of 
barbarous  peoples  who  had  wealth  in  profusion. 

All  this  was  new  to  the  English,  first  because 
books  were  only  then  becoming  plenty  and 
cheap,  and  second  because  the  English  nation 
had  just  learned  that  her  ships  and  sailors  were  a 
match  for  those  of  any  in  the  world.  They  no 
longer  feared  to  put  out  into  the  open  sea  and  to 
sail  to  the  furthermost  parts  of  the  earth. 

There  was  always  an  additional  reason  to  join 
expeditions  to  •  America  in  the  fact  that  it  was 
still  believed  to  be  merely  an  Asiatic  coast. 
Even  the  best  informed  English  geographers 
of  the  time  believed  fully  that  there  would 
be  discovered  a  strait,  either  southward  or 
northward,  leading  to  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
and  thus  giving  quick  access  to  the  markets 
of  the  East,  from  which  came  so  many  riches 
and  luxuries.  There  were  different  ideas  at 
different  times  concerning  just  where  this  pas- 
sage was  to  be  looked  for.  At  one  time  it  was 
confidently  thought  to  be  somewhere  in  north 
latitude  forty,  or  through  the  middle  of  the  State 
of  New  Jersey.  When  this  idea  had  to  be  given 
up,  the  supposed  opening  through  the  land  that 
had  stopped  Columbus  was  shifted,  and  certain 


The  First  New  Englanders          39 

navigators  believed  it  was  to  be  found  some- 
where in  the  northwest. 

Still  later,  there  was  some  hope  of  rinding  a 
great  fresh-water  lake,  or  inland  sea,  that  should 
open  into  both  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Oceans. 
For  more  than  a  hundred  years  later  there  still 
remained  hope  of  finding,  not  far  from  the  eastern 
coast,  a  big  river  flowing  westward  down  which 
ships  might  be  sent  to  the  Pacific.  The  very 
latest  trace  of  the  idea  of  getting  through  the 
American  continent  did  not  disappear  until 
about  1/65. 

Of  course,  if  such  a  passage  had  existed  it 
would  have  been  well  worth  finding,  as  it  would 
make  a  short  road  to  the  East  and  would  enrich 
those  merchants  who  could  send  cargoes  out  to 
exchange  for  Oriental  products. 

The  demand  of  the  time  for  rich  spices  was 
boundless.  There  was  little  skill  in  cookery,  and 
men's  appetites  tired  of  the  continual  roasts, 
stews,  and  broils.  Pepper,  cinnamon,  and  other 
such  condiments  came  from  Asia,  were  high- 
priced,  and  there  was  not  nearly  enough  of  them 
to  satisfy  the  public  demand. 

Besides  this  commercial  reason,  there  was  a 
strong  flavor  of  romance  in  the  idea  of  seeing  for 
one's  self  the  new  regions  concerning  which 


40  When  America  Was  New 

such  marvelous  stories  had  been  told  by 
travelers  whose  tales  were  little  more  than 
romances  strung  upon  a  slender  thread  of  fact. 
Even  had  the  stories  not  been  told  without  much 
care  to  separate  the  truth  from  mere  fancy  and 
romance,  there  was  plenty  of  excitement  to  be 
found  in  the  true  narratives  of  such  great  deeds 
as  the  conquest  of  Mexico  and  of  Peru. 

It  was  a  time  when  war  was  the  rule  and  peace 
the  exception  among  even  the  more  advanced 
nations,  and  many  of  the  religious  men  of  the 
time  were  anything  but  scrupulous  in  advocating 
the  conversion  of  the  heathen  after  the  method 
of  Mahomet,  at  the  edge  of  the  sword. 

The  Indians  were  still  curiosities  in  which 
Englishmen  took  unbounded  interest.  There  is 
an  often  quoted  reference  in  Shakespeare's, "  The 
Tempest "  to  the  eagerness  of  the  Londoners  to 
gaze  upon  the  embalmed  body  of  a  dead  Indian. 

All  these  motives  were  among  the  causes  that 
led  men  to  enroll  themselves  in  the  various  ex- 
peditions that  set  forth  for  the  American  con- 
tinent. 

With  so  much  to  drive  them  from  home,  and 
so  much  to  invite  them  to  cross  the  sea,  it  is  only 
surprising  that  the  ships  going  to  the  New  World 
were  not  crowded  full  of  adventurous  folk.  The 


The  First  New  Englanders          41 

more  intelligent,  who  were  able  to  read  the  stories 
of  men  who  had  gone  to  Virginia,  must  have 
seen  that  dangers  were  great  and  the  prospects 
for  comfort  and  prosperity  in  the  new  country 
were  anything  but  bright. 

There  was  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  first  expedi- 
tion. He  did  not  accompany  it  but  put  it  under 
the  command  of  Amadas  and  Barlowe.  This 
was  a  mere  matter  of  exploration,  and  resulted  in 
a  glowing  account  of  the  blessings  of  the  land 
which  they  described  as  fruitful,  wholesome,  in- 
habited by  a  mild  and  gentle  people  from  whom 
only  kindness  was  to  be  expected.  Then  fol- 
lowed, also  under  Raleigh's  patronage,  a  fleet  of 
seven  ships  under  Sir  Richard  Grenville,  the 
doughty  sea  warrior  whose  fight  single-handed 
against  the  whole  Spanish  fleet  has  given  Tenny- 
son the  subject  for  his  poem,  "  The  Ballad  of  the 
Revenge." 

Though  about  a  hundred  men  were  landed  on 
Roanoke  Island,  no  settlement  could  be  formed 
because  of  the  quarrels  with  the  Indians  and 
failure  of  food  supplies.  Grenville  going  out  a 
second  time  to  help  the  colony,  found  it  aban- 
doned, but  left  a  few  men  to  hold  Roanoke  Is- 
land for  the  Queen.  Raleigh  then  got  together  a 
number  of  merchants  to  fit  out  a  larger  expedi- 


42  When  America  Was  New 

tion.  In  1587  a  number  of  settlers  was  landed 
on  Roanoke  Island,  and  here  the  first  white  child 
was  born  of  English  parents — Virginia  Dare. 
Three  years  later,  when  Virginia's  grandfather, 
John  White,  governor  of  the  colony,  came  back 
from  a  voyage  to  England,  he  found  only  ruins  in 
the  place  of  settlement  and  the  word  "  Croatan  " 
— probably  the  name  of  an  Indian  town — cut  on 
a  tree.  Nothing  has  ever  been  learned  as  to  the 
fate  of  these  settlers.  It  did  not  seem  as  if  it  was 
meant  there  should  be  an  English  colony  planted. 

But  the  failures  made  by  these  different  par- 
ties sent  to  Virginia  were  explained  away.  It 
was  said  that  the  men  themselves  misbehaved ; 
that  they  were  badly  governed ;  or  that  they  had 
had  accidents  ;  and  people  still  believed  it  pos- 
sible to  avoid  all  such  mistakes  and  to  return 
from  America  within  a  few  months  bringing  a 
shipload  of  treasure. 

It  was  afterward  seen  by  those  who  read 
wisely  the  stories  sent  home  by  the  Virginia 
colonists,  that  in  order  to  make  a  successful  set- 
tlement parties  must  be  formed  of  men  used  to 
working  with  their  hands  and  able  to  make  for 
themselves  homes,  to  defend  themselves  against 
the  hostile  natives,  and  to  trade  skilfully  with  the 
friendly  Indians. 


The  First  New  Englanders          43 

From  the  published  accounts  of  these  various 
expeditions  the  leaders  of  the  Mayflower  party 
had  gained  some  knowledge  of  the  land  to  which 
they  were  going,  since  the  leaders  tried  to  learn 
all  they  could  about  the  New  World,  and  there 
was  one  man  then  in  England  better  fitted  than 
any  one  else  to  lend  them  aid.  This  was  Captain 
John  Smith  of  the  Jamestown  Colony,  who,  after 
he  had  been  injured  by  a  gunpowder  explosion  in 
one  of  his  explorations,  had  come  back  to  England 
and  had  made  several  trading  and  fishing  voyages 
to  the  New  England  coast,  and  given  his  time  to 
writing  about  the  life  at  Jamestown.  Smith 
wrote  to  the  Pilgrims  offering  his  services  and 
advice. 

Smith  held  at  this  time  the  position,  or  rather 
title,  of  Admiral  of  New  England,  and  thus  had 
an  official  interest  also  in  the  settlement  of  the 
coast.  John  Smith  had  written  perhaps  offering 
to  guide  them,  and  to  take  charge  of  the  settlers  ; 
but  since  they  already  had  his  map  of  Virginia, 
they  believed  it  wise  economy  to  trust  to  them- 
selves rather  than  to  engage  Smith,  concerning 
whom  there  had  been  more  than  one  unpleasant 
story  told  by  his  enemies  in  Virginia.  The  reply 
to  his  offer  declared  Smith's  "  books  and  maps 
were  much  better  cheap  to  teach  them  than 


44  When  America  Was  New 

himself."  This  Smith  has  told  us  in  his  own 
writing,  and  he  adds,  shrewdly,  "  many  others 
have  pursued  the  like  good  husbandry "  (that 
is,  safe,  or  economical  conduct)  "  that  have  paid 
dearly  in  trying  their  self-willed  conclusions." 

As  to  the  people  on  board  the  Mayflower,  they 
were  mainly  of  two  sorts,  those  who  came  of 
the  poorer  classes,  and  those  who  belonged  to  the 
richer  families  but  had  been  turned  out  into  the 
world  to  make  their  living.  Of  the  former  sort 
was  John  Alden,  a  cooper,  probably  an  ordinary 
tradesman  such  as  we  see  around  us  everywhere, 
a  strong,  well-built  young  man  who  had  grown  up 
at  the  work  of  putting  together  casks  and  barrels, 
handy  with  tools,  fairly  intelligent,  but  not  at  all 
well  educated.  His  dress  was  plain  and  simple, 
probably  well  worn  and  of  common  material,  for 
only  the  nobles  and  the  rich  were  permitted  in 
those  days  to  wear  gay  costumes,  lace  and  jewels. 

Of  the  other  sort  were  such  men  as  Captain 
Myles  Standish,  who  seems,  though  it  is  some- 
what uncertain,  to  have  been  the  younger  son  of 
a  good  family,  but  to  have  gone  out  into  the 
world  at  an  early  age  as  a  soldier,  depending  only 
on  himself  for  a  living.  Bradford  who  became 
the  governor  of  Plymouth  for  many  years  also  be- 
longed to  the  latter  class,  being  a  well  educated 


The  First  New  Englanders          45 

man  who  had  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  Pilgrims  be- 
cause of  his  religious  views. 

Alden  and  Standish  were  entirely  used  to 
coarse  fare  and  to  hard  living.  Even  the  poorer 
classes  to-day  would  consider  it  a  great  hardship 
to  put  up  with  the  regular  way  of  life  that  seemed 
comfort  to  a  soldier  of  Elizabethan  times  or  to 
such  a  tradesman  as  Alden.  Their  beds  were 
poor,  usually  merely  of  straw  ticks,  at  best; their 
food,  though  plentiful,  was  coarse  and  poorly 
prepared ;  and  their  clothing  was  so  seldom  re- 
newed that  garments  were  often  handed  down 
from  father  to  son  as  heirlooms. 

The  most  intimate  friend  of  Bradford  was 
William  Brewster.  He  was  a  graduate  of  Cam- 
bridge college,  and  had  afterward  been  a  clerk  to 
Elizabeth's  Secretary  of  State,  and  with  him  had 
traveled  in  Holland.  The  rest  of  the  Mayflower 
passengers  were  English  people  neither  rich  nor 
very  poor,  such  as  lived  on  small  farms  and  made 
a  scanty  living  out  of  them  by  hard  work.  Of 
course  they  were  not  educated,  but  they  could 
use  tools,  were  able  to  manage  the  ordinary 
crops,  knew  about  the  care  of  farm  animals,  and 
if  they  did  not  dress  richly,  yet  had  good  cloth- 
ing, fared  well,  and  had  the  respect  of  their 
neighbors.  Such  they  had  been  in  England; 


46  When  America  Was  New 

i 

and,  besides,  they  had  learned  when  being  per- 
secuted to  be  close  friends,  and  were  trained  by 
their  long  years  amcng  the  Dutch  to  act  together 
for  the  good  of  the  community.  They  went 
aboard  their  vessels  without  intention  of  ever  re- 
turning to  England,  and  thus  were  the  first  who 
really  meant  to  become  "  Americans." 

A  sea  voyage  of  that  time  meant  weeks  and 
months  of  living  upon  most  unsavory  food,  for 
the  stores  consisted  of  grain,  salt  fish,  salt  meat, 
and  a  few  sorts  of  dried  fruit  most  imperfectly 
prepared.  Even  in  those  times  also  there  was 
sufficient  greed  and  fraud  in  trade  to  make  it 
likely  that  the  dealers  from  whom  they  bought 
their  provisions  would  so  pack  them  as  to  cover 
spoiled  or  inferior  grains  by  a  layer  of  better 
quality,  or  would  sell  them  salted  meat  packed  in 
casks  so  that  it  could  not  easily  be  examined  be- 
fore sailing.  It  was  sometimes  found,  after  a 
ship  was  out  on  the  high  seas,  that  she  had  been 
loaded  with  spoiled  provisions.  In  the  case  of 
ships  going  to  a  new  country  there  was  little 
chance  that  a  dishonest  dealer  would  ever  be 
brought  to  justice.  There  was  no  one  to  take 
up  the  complaints  of  poor  sailors  or  passengers, 
and  if,  as  sometimes  happened,  the  captain  of  the 
ship  was  a  party  to  the  fraud,  any  growling  about 


The  First  New  Englanders          47 

the  food  would  be  likely  to  bring  upon  the 
grumbler  a  beating,  at  the  very  least. 

In  order  to  keep  warm  upon  the  wintry 
Atlantic  the  men  had  to  rely  upon,  at*  most,  one 
or  two  fires  built  upon  hearths  of  clay  or  sand 
set  upon  the  ship's  decks.  The  men  were  all 
bundled  in  ill-fitting  clothing,  and  had  no  means 
of  thoroughly  protecting  themselves  from  spray, 
heavy  sea-mist,  and  rain. 

The  small  size  of  the  vessels  caused  them  to  be 
terribly  tossed  during  rough  weather,  and,  except 
for  the  most  hardened,  seasickness  was  inevitable. 
They  had  no  good  means  of  keeping  drinking 
water  pure  and  wholesome,  and  the  management 
of  the  sails  requiring  constant  attention  gave  the 
sailors  and  passengers  little  relief  from  wearing 
toil.  Another  thing  not  to  be  forgotten  was  the 
superstitious  fear  of  the  sea  and  its  monsters,  for 
it  was  an  age  of  credulity,  and,  among  sailors 
especially,  wonderful  legends  were  eagerly  told 
and  credulously  received.  The  sea  was  an  un- 
known world  believed  to  be  full  of  strange 
dangers,  and  any  sea- voyage  was  an  adventure 
in  itself. 

The  book  from  which  we  learn  about  the  voy- 
age of  the  Mayflower  was  written  by  Governor 
William  Bradford,  and  in  reading  his  pages  we 


48  When  America  Was  New 

have  a  sense  of  reality  in  his  descriptions  of  how 
"  it  began  to  snow  and  rain,"  and  how  "  about 
the  middle  of  the  afternoon  on  the  8th  of  De- 
cember the  wind  increased  and  the  sea  became 
rough,  the  rudder  broke,  and  the  ship  had  to  be 
steered  by  two  men  with  oars."  At  another 
time  the  mast  breaks  in  three  pieces,  the  sail 
falling  overboard.  Every  day  had  its  anxiety  or 
trouble,  and  the  voyage  was  one  long  hardship, 
especially  to  the  women  and  children  cooped  up 
below  the  decks  in  rough  weather. 

The  most  serious  accident  on  board  the  May- 
flowerwas  the  suddeji  cracking  of  a  great  timber 
that  supported  the  deck.  Of  course,  if  this 
should  give  way  they  knew  the  deck  would  fall 
in  and  then  the  seas  coming  aboard  would  soon 
fill  and  swamp  the  vessel,  for  it  would  be  no 
more  than  a  big  open  boat.  Luckily  they  found 
that  some  one  had  put  aboard  a  great  screw,  a 
sort  of  "  jack,"  like  that  used  for  raising  wagons 
to  repair  them.  This  was  put  below  the  timber 
and  used  to  force  it  back  into  place,  making  the 
vessel  safe  once  more. 

The  Pilgrims  were  many  of  them  very  sea- 
sick, and  were  not  kindly  treated  by  the  sailors, 
one  of  whom  cursed  them  and  said  that  he 
"hoped  to  cast  half  of  them  overboard  before 


The  First  New  Englanders          49 

they  came  to  their  journey's  end."  But,  strangely 
enough,  this  young  man  himself  was  smitten 
with  disease  and  was  the  first  of  the  ship's  com- 
pany to  die  and  be  buried  at  sea ;  which  Brad- 
ford seemed  to  regard  as  a  judgment  of  heaven 
upon  him  for  his  wickedness. 

These  were  the  ordinary  dangers  awaiting 
every  one  who  put  to  sea  ;  but,  in  addition,  there 
were  other  causes  of  dread  that  made  the  people 
of  the  time  rightfully  regard  every  long  sea 
voyage  as  a  great  peril.  The  sea  was  a  sort  of 
"  no  man's  land  "  where  there  was  no  law  except 
the  law  of  the  strongest.  Once  out  of  the  land- 
locked seas,  the  mariner  depended  upon  the 
swiftness  of  his  vessel,  his  clever  seamanship,  or 
his  little  cannon  for  safety.  In  reading  the  ad- 
ventures of  sailors  in  those  days,  we  find  the  fear 
of  pirates  ever  present.  And  the  pirates  of  the 
time  were  not  found  under  the  black  flag  only  ; 
there  seemed  nearly  always  to  be  enough  enmity 
between  nations  to  permit  of  seizing  a  desirable 
cargo  if  it  belonged  to  a  foreign  power.  And,  if 
a  vessel  were  missing,  who  could  say  that  it  had 
not  gone  down  in  a  storm  ?  The  ocean  of  those 
old  times  was  not  the  thronged  highway  of  our 
day,  nor  were  the  war  vessels — which  acted  as 
searpolicemen — the  irresistible  monsters  we  know. 


$o  When  America  Was  New 

Where  to-day  the  sight  of  a  sail  on  the  horizon 
is  a  matter  told  with  joy  by  one  passenger  to  an- 
other, in  those  days  the  first  thought  that  came 
to  the  minds  of  the  seafarers  was  the  danger  that 
the  strange  ship  would  run  up  the  black  flag  and, 
without  other  warning,  begin  a  fierce  battle  that 
might  end  in  the  capture  of  their  ship  and  the 
walking  of  the  plank  by  every  soul  on  board. 
Every  ship  went  armed,  and  a  sharp  lookout  was 
kept  so  that  in  good  time  the  vessel  might  take 
to  her  heels  if  a  suspicious  stranger  was  met. 

Thus,  in  reading  the  life  of  Captain  John  Smith 
of  Virginia,  we  find  that  about  1615  he  was  in 
command  of  a  small  vessel  making  a  voyage  with 
a  crew  of  thirty  men  to  New  England.  When 
well  out  on  the  ocean  his  ship  was  attacked  by 
pirates,  with  whom  Smith  held  a  parley.  He 
discovered  that  the  men  who  attacked  him  had 
been,  many  of  them,  his  own  companions  during 
his  campaigns  against  the  Turks.  They  offered 
to  join  Smith's  fishing  or  colonizing  expedition, 
but  he  refused  them  and  sailed  away,  only  to 
fall  in  once  more  with  two  pirate  ships  from 
which  he  escaped  by  superior  sailing.  A  little 
later,  Smith's  vessel  met  a  fleet  of  four  French 
men-of-war,  supposed  to  be  acting  as  "  police " 
against  the  pirates  and  as  warships  against  the 


The  First  New  Englanders          51 

Spaniards  and  Portuguese.  When  Smith  went 
aboard  the  Admiral's  ship  and  showed  his  papers 
he  was  detained,  and  meanwhile  his  ship  was 
robbed  by  the  crews  of  the  men-of-war — who 
thus  treated  him  worse  than  the  professed  pirates 
had  done. 

This  little  instance  of  a  single  voyage  will  show 
that  it  was  not  a  matter  of  small  risk  in  those 
days  to  sail  upon  the  high  seas. 

The  Mayflower's  voyage  had  lasted  about  nine 
weeks  when  land  was  sighted  and  recognized  to 
be  Cape  Cod,  a  point  much  further  north  than 
they  had  expected  to  reach.  They  had  tried  to 
turn  southward  but  were  unable  to  pass  the 
dangerous  shoals  and  roaring  breakers  before  the 
wind  failed.  It  was  then  decided  to  go  back  to 
the  harbor  and  there  cast  anchor. 

The  most  pressing  need  was  for  fresh  water 
and  fire-wood,  and  fifteen  or  sixteen  men  waded 
through  the  shoals  and  were  gone  all  day  explor- 
ing. On  their  return  they  reported  the  land  like 
Holland,  but  with  better  soil,  and  said  that  the 
woods  were  free  from  undergrowth.  They  had 
found  no  inhabitants. 

The  Mayflower  lay  at  anchor  in  some  part 
of  the  harbor  until  the  middle  of  April,  1621, 
and  meanwhile  the  men  of  the  party  waded  to 


52  When  America  Was  New 

and  fro  through  the  shallows  putting  up  some 
rough  houses  for  shelter,  making  handles  for  the 
tools  they  had  brought  from  England  or  Holland, 
cutting  timbers  to  make  a  boat,  and  in  other 
ways  preparing  for  the  landing.  During  this 
period  they  had  one  slight  skirmish  with  the 
Indians,  explored  the  shores  of  the  bay,  and 
selected  the  site  for  their  settlement. 

On  January  3ist  they  had  so  far  finished  their 
Common  House,  or  town  hall,  as  to  be  able  to 
hold  services  in  it,  and  on  this  day  began  their 
real  home-making  in  the  wilderness.  They  had 
built  a  few  dwellings,  the  Common  House,  and  a 
shed  for  storing  provisions  before  leaving  the 
vessel,  and  by  lot  they  assigned  plots  of  land 
along  a  street  leading  up  from  the  shore  to  each 
household.  All  working  together,  they  cut  down 
trees,  built  log  houses,  thatched  them  with  sea 
grass,  made  chimneys  out  of  stones  plastered 
with  clay,  and  filled  the  window  and  door  open- 
ings with  roughly-fashioned  shutters  and  doors. 
They  were  still  living,  for  the  most  part,  upon 
grain  and  salt  meat  brought  from  home,  and 
they  now  began  to  shoot  geese,  to  catch  a  few 
fish,  and  were  lucky  enough  to  find  a  dead  deer 
the  Indians  had  abandoned. 

Their  hardships  were  greatly  increased  by  the 


The  First  New  Englanders          53 

severe  sickness  of  nearly  the  whole  party,  at  one 
time  there  being  only  seven  men  able  to  stand 
upon  their  feet.  These  men  did  all  the  work  of 
the  settlement,  cooking,  nursing,  washing,  build- 
ing, and  guarding  the  rest.  During  the  first 
year  about  half  of  all  died,  and  out  of  eight- 
een wives  but  four  lived  through  this  terrible 
winter. 

With  the  coming  of  spring  they  were  able  to  do 
some  planting,  and  in  this  they  were  much  aided 
by  friendly  Indians.  The  Pilgrims  had  taken  up 
land  left  unclaimed  because  a  plague  had  swept 
off  all  the  Indian  inhabitants,  and  thus  they  could 
make  their  settlement  without  interfering  with 
any  Indian  rights. 

By  the  last  of  March  all  the  Pilgrims  had  left 
the  Mayflower  for  good,  and  this  was  the  begin- 
ning of  their  life  in  the  New  World. 

Besides  helping  the  settlers  to  raise  corn  by 
showing  them  how  the  soil  could  be  enriched  with 
fish  caught  in  the  harbor,  the  Indians  also  taught 
them  how  to  dig  clams  upon  the  shore  and  to 
catch  eels  in  the  brook  near  the  town.  The  In- 
dians were  to  prove  for  the  most  part  very  help- 
ful to  the  colonists.  Besides  supplying  them 
with  corn  from  their  own  stores,  the  Indians 
taught  them  how  to  make  moccasins,  and  also 


J4  When  America  Was  New 

how  to  prepare  buckskin  so  that  it  would  be  soft 
and  fit  for  clothing. 

•  All  of  the  Pilgrims  alike  worked  in  the  fields. 
It  had  not  been  necessary  for  them  to  make  clear- 
ings, since  that  had  all  been  done  by  these  In- 
dians, who  were  well  acquainted  with  the  art  of 
raising  corn.  It  was  not  until  later  that  any 
trouble  arose  with  the  Indians,  and  this  was  soon 
settled  by  the  bravery  of  Miles  Standish,  who, 
with  a  little  band  of  men  armed 'with  their  old- 
fashioned  guns,  went  fearlessly  to  visit  the  differ- 
ent tribes  and  by  a  mixture  of  boldness  and  fair 
treatment  succeeded  in  keeping  the  peace  with 
them. 

Before  long  there  were  in  the  settlement  eleven 
houses,  four  of  them  being  for  the  use  of  the 
public.  Their  first  crops  had  been  successful,  and 
they  had  learned  to  trade  with  the  Indians  for 
furs.  It  had  been  arranged  that  out  of  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  colony  whatever  things  were  salable 
in  England  should  be  collected  and  sent  back 
when  the  Mayflower  returned.  There  was  then  a 
great  deal  of  travel  across  the  Atlantic,  for  the 
fishing  banks  north  of  New  England  had  proved 
most  valuable,  and  a  fleet  or  two  came  over  every 
year  for  the  fishing  season.  The  voyage  across 
the  Atlantic  was  therefore  familiar  to  many 


The  First  New  Englanders          55 

sailors,  and  the  Pilgrims  had  made  arrangements 
to  repay  what  money  had  been  raised  by  the 
merchants  to  send  them  out  by  the  products  of 
the  new  land.  To  carry  back  such  products  and 
bring  them  provisions,  a  bargain  had  been  made 
with  the  seafaring  men  who  were  used  to  the 
voyage. 

Thus  they  were  not  entirely  cut  off  from 
their  friends  at  home,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
voyage  was  a  long  and  dangerous  one.  In  fact, 
a  second  ship,  the  Fortune,  came  to  the  colony 
about  a  year  after  the  Mayflower  left  them,  and 
brought  new  colonists.  By  her  a  valuable  cargo 
was  sent  home.  They  could  therefore  send  furs, 
wood,  and  other  products  to  England  in  payment 
of  their  debts  to  the  merchants  who  had  supplied 
them  with  funds  for  the  enterprise,  and  they  had 
not  only  raised  enough  corn  to  provide  for  the 
settlement,  but  had  found  time  also  to  cut  timber 
and  to  go  upon  hunting  expeditions  that  prove 
there  was  plenty  of  game  and  fish  to  be  had  not 
far  from  the  settlement. 

Their  chief  need  was  for  horses,  cattle  and 
sheep.  From  the  account  written  by  Governor 
Bradford,  we  learn  that  they  lived  upon  fish  and 
fowl  which  were  in  great  abundance;  that  they 
had  cod,  lobsters,  eels,  mussels,  clams,  oysters, 


56  When  America  Was  New 

besides  grapes,  berries,  plums,  and  other  fruits  and 
salads.  For  meat  they  seem  to  have  had  little 
but  venison. 

Thus,  within  not  many  months  after  their 
landing,  the  Pilgrim  settlers  were  provided  with 
comfortable  houses,  had  abundance  of  wood  to 
keep  them  warm  in  winter,  and  lived  probably 
better  than  they  had  ever  lived  before. 

But  all  this  plenty  lasted  only  during  a  few 
months  after  the  fall.  By  the  following  spring 
the  absence  of  game  and  the  lack  of  proper 
means  for  fishing  had  brought  scarcity  to  the 
colony,  and  they  were  compelled  to  go  upon 
half  rations  while  they  sent  one  of  their  number 
northward  to  procure  bread  from  the  fishing  fleets 
that  were  accustomed  to  cross  the  Atlantic  every 
year  to  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland.  From  this 
fleet  the  messenger  got  enough  ship  bread,  prob- 
ably hard  biscuit,  to  keep  them  alive  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  several  new  parties  of  emigrants  had 
arrived  from  England. 

Although  there  were  times  of  plenty  and  times 
of  famine  to  follow,  and  although  there  were  oc- 
casional troubles  with  the  Indians,  the  Pilgrim 
settlement  on  the  whole  prospered,  growing  in 
strength  and  in  numbers  and  soon  becoming  self- 
supporting  ;  for  nearly  all  the  members  of  the 


The  First  New  En  glanders          57 

colony  were  men  who  had  learned  to  work  with 
their  hands  and  were  quick  to  take  hints  from 
their  Indian  neighbors.  There  never  was  in  this 
first  New  England  colony  a  state  of  things  so  bad 
as  the  terrible  periods  of  suffering  undergone  by 
the  settlers  of  Jamestown. 

The  Pilgrims,  as  has  been  said,  were  the  first 
who  came  to  America  resolved  to  make  their 
homes  there  for  good.  It  was  this  intention  that 
helped  them  to  make  a  successful  colony,  but 
during  their  earliest  years  they  came  near  to  ruin 
because  they  tried,  as  other  settlers  had  done,  to 
hold  their  land  in  common  and  to  have  every 
settler  work  for  all  the  rest.  Two  years'  trial  of 
this  plan  showed  that  it  was  not  the  best,  and 
William  Bradford,  their  governor,  decided  to 
divide  the  land  on  which  they  settled  into  plots, 
giving  to  each  household  a  plot  larger  or  smaller 
according  to  its  numbers,  so  every  household 
had  to  depend  upon  itself  and  the  work  of  its  own 
members.  They  were  thus  compelled  to  work  for 
their  food  or  to  go  hungry. 

After  this  new  plan  was  adopted,  Bradford 
writes :  "  In  general,  want  or  suffering  hath 
not  been  among  them  since  to  this  day."  And 
this  was  written  a  number  of  years  afterward. 

Thus,  both  in  Virginia  and  in  New  England, 


58  When  America  Was  New 

the  plan  of  working  their  land  in  common  had 
failed,  and  a  wise  governor  in  each  region  had 
found  it  necessary  to  give  separate  farms  to  the 
settlers. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  DIFFERENT  SETTLERS 

IN  drawing  contrasting  pictures  of  the  first 
settlers  in  the  North  and  the  first  settlers  at 
the  South,  we  shall  have  to  begin  with  the 
land  itself.  The  Virginia  plantations  lay  mainly 
along  the  low  banks  of  rivers,  in  a  soft  climate, 
where  the  soil  was  fertile,  whereas  in  the  North 
the  land  was  rocky,  not  easy  to  cultivate,  and  the 
shores  were  abrupt,  rough,  and  uninviting. 

The  people  themselves,  after  they  had  been  in 
the  New  World  long  enough  to  have  their  char- 
acters changed  by  the  sort  of  life  they  led, 
differed  as  much  as  the  regions  in  which  they 
had  settled.  The  Virginian  felt  an  affection  for 
his  old  home,  was  willing  to  be  dependent  upon 
England,  looked  upon  the  old  country  as  his 
best  customer,  and  considered  himself  as  one  who 
meant,  some  day,  to  visit  his  native  land,  even 
if  he  did  not  remain  there. 

The  New  Englander,  on  the  contrary,  looked 
upon  himself  as  one  who  had  been  driven  or  had 
59 


60  When  America  Was  New 

gone  by  choige  into  a  foreign  land  to  carry  on 
his  affairs  in  his  own  way. 

But  although  this  great  difference  between 
North  and  South  existed,  yet  there  were  differ- 
ences between  the  settlers  even  of  the  same  part 
of  the  land,  and  this  difference  in  New  England 
was  very  great  between  the  Pilgrim  and  the 
Puritan. 

We  have  read  how  the  New  England  settle- 
ment began  by  the  coming  of  the  Pilgrims  to 
Plymouth ;  and  the  success  they  had  met  with 
brought  about  an  entirely  different  sort  of  settle- 
ment, though  in  the  same  region.  This  was  the 
Boston  Colony,  that  really  became  the  beginning 
of  Massachusetts  and  at  a  later  time  swallowed 
up  the  Plymouth  settlement :  for  the  ways  of  the 
two  became  more  alike  as  time  went  on,  and  the 
Puritan  settlers  soon  became  much  greater  in 
numbers  than  the  Pilgrims,  who  did  not  greatly 
increase. 

The  coming  of  the  Puritans  was  thought  out 
most  carefully.  Everything  that  seemed  likely 
to  make  the  colony  a  success  was  done  before 
they  started.  They  had  good  leaders,  some  of 
the  ablest  men  of  the  time ;  they  came  with  a 
clear  knowledge  of  the  country  and  of  the  con- 
ditions to  be  met  with ;  and  they  had  plenty  of 


The  Different  Settlers  6 1 

money,  so  that  they  could  buy  all  that  they 
needed  in  clearing  the  ground,  planting  their 
farms,  and  building  their  homes. 

The  Puritans  were  men  who  did  not  mean  to 
leave  the  Church  of  England,  saying  themselves 
that  they  would  not  "  overset  the  house,  but 
wanted  to  sweep  it."  They  did  not  like  prayers 
read  from  books,  or  ministers'  robes,  and  ob- 
jected to  many  of  the  ceremonies  that  were 
thought  to  be  popish.  Although  they  did  not 
altogether  agree  among  themselves,  in  general 
they  hoped  to  simplify  the  Church  service,  but 
did  not  at  first  go  so  far  as  the  Pilgrims  had 
done  in  making  each  congregation  a  self-ruled 
body. 

They  represented  a  very  strong  party  in 
England,  and  they  secured  from  the  King  a 
charter  and  a  grant  of  land  north  of  where  the 
Pilgrims  had  made  their  colony.  It  is  thought 
that  the  reason  why  the  King  gave  them  the 
right  to  make  a  colony  was  that  he  hoped  to 
keep  in  check  the  growing  Dutch  Colony  on 
Manhattan  Island,  and  thus  to  secure  a  larger 
part  of  the  American  coast  for  England. 

Very  wisely,  the  colonists  of  the  Massachusetts 
Company  arranged  that  the  governing  of  their 
affairs  should  be  carried  on  in  the  New  World, 


62  When  America  Was  New 

and  they  thus  from  the  beginning  saved  them- 
selves from  interference  by  men  who  did  not 
know  the  conditions  in  America. 

Among  their  company  were  men  of  good 
family,  with  property,  and  well  educated,  and 
their  purpose  seems  to  have  been  to  found  in 
America  a  settlement  that  would  show  the  whole 
world  how  good  was  the  system  of  religion  and 
government  in  which  they  believed.  The  colony, 
once  begun,  increased  so  rapidly  that  in  the 
ten  years  from  1630  to  1640  it  had  grown  to 
number  fifteen  thousand.  At  the  end  of  this 
time  there  came  a  halt  in  its  growth.  Because 
of  the  unwillingness  of  King  Charles  to  let 
Parliament  govern  England,  disputes  began,  and 
two  great  parties  were  formed  in  England,  one 
supporting  the  King,  the  other  the  Parliament. 
In  the  latter  party  were  the  Puritans  and  all 
those  who  sympathized  with  them.  These  men, 
in  spite  of  small  differences  of  opinion,  were  all 
agreed  in  opposing  the  power  of  the  King  and 
fought  against  him  in  the  war  that  followed. 
When  the  King's  party,  or  Cavaliers,  were  de- 
feated, the  prominent  Puritans  came  into  power 
and  all  interference  with  men  of  their  own  belief 
ceased. 

There  was  thus  no  reason  for  them  to  flee  to 


The  Different  Settlers  63 

America,  and  it  was  not  until  the  coming  of  the 
Stuarts  again  to  the  throne  in  1660,  that  there 
was  any  large  number  of  emigrants  to  the  Puritan 
colonies. 

As  the  colony  at  Plymouth  had  in  these  later 
years  become  fairly  prosperous,  it  was  very 
natural  that  the  English  Puritans,  looking  about 
for  a  means  of  escape  from  the  royalists,  should 
decide  upon  making  for  themselves  a  new  colony 
in  America,  as  the  Pilgrims  had  done  about  forty 
years  before. 

Thomas  Dudley,  afterward  governor  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, says  in  telling  how  Massachusetts  Bay 
Colony  began,  that  in  the  year  1627  "some 
friends  in  Lincolnshire  fell  into  a  discussion 
about  New  England  and  the  planting  of  the 
gospel  there."  These  friends  wrote  to  other 
Puritans,  and  decided  to  send  one  of  their  num- 
ber to  look  into  the  conditions  in  America. 

This  was  John  Endicott,  who  went  over  and 
began  the  "  plantation,"  as  Dudley  calls  it,  at 
Salem.  These  pioneers  reported  that  all  went 
well  with  them,  and  in  1629  some  ships  with 
about  three  hundred  people  were  sent  over,  well 
provided  with  cows,  horses  and  goats.  When 
this  second  party  also  sent  home  good  reports, 
John  Winthrop  became  the  leader  of  still  larger 


64  When  America  Was  New 

expeditions,  seventeen  ships  in  all  coming  by 
1630. 

It  was  found,  however,  that  some  of  the 
colonists  had  suffered  during  the  winter  weather, 
and  so  it  was  decided  on  the  part  of  the  leaders 
to  look  for  another  place  than  Salem.  A  num- 
ber of  good  town  sites  were  selected,  and  settle- 
ments began  at  Charlestown,  Boston,  Medford, 
and  several  other  places.  But  the  Puritans  did 
not  approve  of  this  separation,  and  after  full  dis- 
cussion they  agreed  to  get  together  so  as  to 
make  a  single  strong  town,  and  later  most  of  the 
settlers  gathered  around  Boston  Bay. 

This  account  is  given  by  Governor  Dudley  in 
a  letter  written  in  March,  1631,  to  the  Countess 
of  Lincoln ;  so  we  see  that  in  four  years  the 
Puritan  Colony  was  well  started. 

Dudley's  letter  concludes  by  advising  those 
who  wish  to  better  themselves  not  to  come  to 
America  if  they  are  in  good  circumstances  in 
England ;  but  he  promises  those  who  wish  to 
come  «  for  spiritual  ends  "  they  will  find  wood 
for  building  and  to  burn,  ground  for  planting, 
seas  and  rivers  to  fish  in,  pure  air  to  breathe, 
good  water  to  drink  "  until  wine  or  beer  can  be 
made,"  and  sufficient  food,  though  no  luxuries. 

The    men    in   charge   of    the    Massachusetts 


A    PILGRIM    SOLDIER.      ARMOR    AND    WEAPONS. 


The  Different  Settlers  65 

Colony  were  very  generous  in  setting  apart  plots 
of  ground  for  settlers.  These  plots  were  not 
very  large  because  there  was  not  a  great  deal  of 
fertile  soil ;  besides,  settlers  preferred  to  live  near 
together.  Towns  usually  were  laid  out  along  a 
single  street,  each  house  having  a  garden  at  its 
back.  The  land  for  building,  pasturing,  and  the 
forest  land,  was  usually  held  in  common,  since 
it  was  expensive  to  build  fences,  and  not  easy  to 
protect  great  tracts  from  Indian  attacks.  The 
same  plan  was  adopted  in  other  New  England 
settlements. 

The  differences  between  Puritan  and  Pilgrim 
were  naturally  great,  since  they  were  of  such  dif- 
ferent origin.  To  begin  with,  their  views  of  the 
Church  were  not  at  all  alike.  The  Pilgrim 
ought,  rightly,  to  be  called  an  "  Independent," 
for  his  chief  idea  in  church  government  was  the 
right  of  every  congregation  to  fix  for  itself  the 
way  of  worship,  to  choose  for  itself  the  minister, 
and  to  decide  for  itself  what  men  should  be  re- 
ceived or  should  be  excluded  from  membership. 
This  did  not  always  mean  that  they  were  against 
the  regular  English  Church,  but  only  that  they 
did  not  believe  in  the  power  of  that  Church  to 
decide  for  them  matters  of  conscience,  matters 
of  right  and  wrong. 


66  When  America  Was  New 

It  was  quite  different  with  the  Puritans. 
They  had  never  refused  to  yield  to  the  laws  or 
rules  of  the  English  Church.  They  had  done  no 
more  than  urge  certain  reforms  in  their  churches, 
customs,  and  services.  In  coming  to  America, 
they  expected  at  first  to  keep  up  their  relation 
with  the  Church  at  home,  and  were  not  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  desire  of  the  Pilgrims  to  be  free 
from  home  control  or  interference. 

If  we  bear  in  mind  this  difference  in  views  we 
shall  not  be  surprised  to  know  that  the  Puritans 
were  much  more  intolerant  than  the  Pilgrims. 
The  Pilgrims  could  not  well  insist  upon  the  right 
to  think  for  themselves  without  granting  the 
same  right  to  others.  The  Puritans  had  thought 
themselves  bound  to  follow  the  rules  laid  down 
for  them  at  home,  and  so  saw  no  reason  why 
they  should  give  place  in  their  settlements  to 
those  who  desire  to  upturn  the  old  laws  and 
customs  in  England. 

Thus  it  was  not  at  all  an  uncommon  thing  in 
the  early  days  of  New  England  for  those  who 
were  accused  of  free-thinking  or  heresy,  by  the 
Puritans,  to  be  driven  out  of  their  settlements 
and  to  take  refuge  with  the  Pilgrims  at  New 
Plymouth.  One  example  of  such  a  refugee  was 
Roger  Williams,  who  began  the  settlement  that 


The  Different  Settlers  67 

became  Rhode  Island ;  and  again  and  again  we 
may  read  of  the  Quakers  being  driven  out  of 
such  communities  as  Boston,  while  being  allowed 
to  live  peaceably  among  the  Pilgrim  families  of 
Plymouth. 

Naturally  this  now  and  then  made  trouble  be- 
tween these  two  sorts  of  New  Englanders,  and 
there  still  exist  letters  that  passed  between  the 
governors  of  Boston  and  those  of  New  Plymouth 
in  regard  to  the  free-thinkers,  who,  having  been 
driven  into  the  Pilgrim  town,  were  harbored 
there,  although  the  Boston  men  would  have  been 
glad  to  see  them  driven  out.  As  years  went  on, 
however,  .the  Pilgrim  and  the  Puritan  became 
more  and  more  alike.  Living  under  the  same 
conditions  and  thinking  much  the  same  thoughts, 
the  Puritan  came  to  be  more  of  an  Independent, 
and  the  Pilgrim  was  willing  to  live  in  the  New 
Country  under  many  of  the  conditions  against 
which  he  had  fought  in  the  old. 

This  was  due  also  to  the  events  that  were  tak- 
ing place  in  England  in  the  years  following  the 
first  settlement  of  New  England,  for  it  was  the 
time  of  the  great  uprising  against  the  Stuarts. 
People  were  divided  into  two  great  parties — those 
who  supported  the  claims  of  the  King,  and  those 
who  were  in  favor  of  the  Parliament.  So  di- 


68  When  America  Was  New 

vided  by  one  big  question,  there  was  less  atten- 
tion paid  to  the  smaller  matters  that  had  for- 
merly marked  off  the  little  sects  and  denomina- 
tions. 

In  reading  history  we  find  that  we  must  be 
told  mainly  about  the  great  questions  of  any 
time.  We  are  told  how  the  colonists  held  cer- 
tain views  about  the  throne,  about  religion,  or 
about  the  rights  of  the  people,  but  these  were  not 
the  things  which  mainly  took  up  the  attention  of 
our  forefathers  after  they  had  come  to  live  in  the 
wilderness. 

In  the  very  early  days,  the  men  and  women 
lived  just  as  people  must  live  who  are,  as  it  were, 
"  camping  out  "  in  a  new  country.  The  things 
that  called  for  their  attention  were  the  providing 
of  shelter,  food  and  fuel,  or  the  protecting  of 
themselves  from  the  natives  or  from  wild  beasts. 
But  as  more  and  more  people  come  to  the  rude 
settlements  made  up  of  a  few  log  cabins,  these 
rougher  villages  give  way  to  larger  and  larger 
towns  in  the  midst  of  many  acres  of  cultivated 
fields.  Then  the  questions  that  need  attention  are 
changed,  the  colonists  find  that  -they  must  pro- 
vide laws  to  govern  themselves,  laws  to  punish 
wrong-doers,  and  rules  by  which  to  carry  on  the 
works  of  peace  or  the  pursuit  of  warfare. 


The  Different  Settlers  69 

The  natural  way,  as  we  know  from  the  history 
of  nearly  all  peoples  of  our  race,  is  to  decide 
such  matters  by  vote  of  the  men  of  the  town  or 
settlement.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  in  order 
to  make  people  obey  rules,  these  rules  must  be 
such  as  can  be  enforced  by  the  power  of  the  men 
forming  the  community  that  makes  them. 

The  first  instance  of  this  making  of  rules  for 
the  New  World  occurred  on  board  the  May- 
flower before  the  landing  of  her  passengers. 
When  she  left  England  it  was  with  permission  to 
settle  in  certain  parts  of  the  land  belonging  to  the 
Virginia  Company  ;  but  on  reaching  the  coast 
the  passengers  discovered  that  they  were  outside 
the  limits  of  the  Virginia  Company's  lands,  and 
therefore  if  they  landed  would  be  in  a  new  coun- 
try really  out  of  the  government  of  any  power 
but  their  own.  There  was  some  talk  of  this  sort 
among  the  passengers,  and  therefore  the  leading 
men  called  a  meeting  in  the  cabin  of  the  vessel, 
and  then  drew  up  a  set  of  rules,  making  an 
authority  to  which  all  must  yield,  and  caused 
these  rules  to  be  signed  by  all  the  men-passen- 
gers who  were  able  to  be  present  at  the  meeting. 

The  same  sort  of  government  continued  in 
their  town  of  Plymouth*  for  many  years,  and 
although  when  settlers  came  in  larger  numbers 


70  When  America  Was  New 

they  lived  under  laws  laid  down  in  England  for 
their  guidance,  yet  even  in  these  later  days  there 
were  a  large  number  of  minor  matters  that  had 
to  be  regulated  by  the  colonists  themselves. 

All  the  little  laws  of  the  colony — the  questions 
of  roadways,  of  pastures,  of  life  in  the  towns,  of 
what  are  known  as  "  minor  morals,"  that  is  to 
say,  good  behavior — all  these  things  had  to  be 
regulated  by  laws  the  colonists  made  for  them- 
selves, and  the  method  of  making  these  laws,  was 
to  hold  a  joint  meeting,  usually  in  a  town-hall  or 
a  church,  and  then  to  vote  what  should  be  made 
the  rule  to  govern  all  that  part  of  the  colony 
whose  ruling  men  thus  met  together.  This  was 
known  as  a  "  Town  Meeting." 

The  only  successful  settlements  were  made  by 
men  of  serious  purpose  who  were  willing  to  live 
under  fixed  laws.  In  the  histories  of  America  we 
read  of  other  settlements  attempted  by  companies 
of  men  who  had  no  purpose  except  to  gain 
money  by  trading  with  the  Indians  ;  but  none  of 
these  lasted,  either  because  of  quarrels  with  the 
natives,  or  because  when  they  sold  liquor  and  gun- 
powder to  the  Indians,  the  better  class  of  colonists 
combined  to  drive  them  away.  There  was,  for 
example,  such  a  settlement  begun  at  Weymouth 
in  Massachusetts.  But  as  soon  as  the  men  at 


The  Different  Settlers  71 

Plymouth  and  at  Boston  saw  that  the  Weymouth 
party  would  not  behave  themselves,  they  sent  an 
armed  guard  under  the  command  of  Captain 
Miles  Standish  to  capture  the  mischief-makers 
and  to  destroy  their  cabins.  This  was  done,  and 
rightly  done,  for  the  Indians  could  not  be  allowed 
to  have  fire-arms  nor  to  drink  liquor  without  the 
greatest  danger  to  the  white  men. 

In  such  a  case  as  this,  every  one  sees  that  men 
must  take  the  law  into  their  own  hands.  They 
have  a  right  to  protect  themselves,  and  to  keep 
others  from  doing  things  that  threaten  their 
lives ;  no  body  of  men  is  bound  to  leave  others 
alone  when  others  do  things  that  threaten  to  en- 
danger the  very  existence  of  their  neighbors. 

But  besides  the  government  of  the  towns  by 
the  colonists  themselves,  there  were  certain 
greater  questions  which  were  considered  impor- 
tant enough  to  be  under  the  control  of  the 
authorities  at  home,  in  England.  From  the  very 
beginning  this  was  borne  in  mind  by  the  King 
and  by  the  companies  that  granted  the  use  of  the 
land  to  the  home-seekers. 

Sometimes  this  interference  of  the  rulers  at 
home  was  a  bad  thing,  as  an  instance  from 
the  experience  of  the  Jamestown  settlers  will 
show. 


J2  When  America  Was  New 

Before  the  Virginia  colonists  set  out  there  was 
delivered  to  them  a  locked  box  in  which  was  an 
elaborate  set  of  rules,  drawn  up  by  the  King  and 
his  ministers,  telling  just  how  the  officers  of  the 
colony  were  to  be  appointed,  who  these  officers 
were  to  be,  what  things  they  might  decide  for 
themselves,  and  what  they  must  keep  for  the  de- 
cision of  greater  officers  at  home. 

It  is  hot  quite  clear  what  good  was  to  come 
from  keeping  the  members  of  the  expedition  in 
the  dark  about  the  contents  of  this  box  until  they 
landed.  It  had  one  very  curious  result.  On  the 
way  over,  John  Smith  had  tried  to  give  more 
advice  than  his  comrades  liked.  No  doubt  he 
knew  more  about  living  on  ship  board  than  any 
of  the  rest,  but  they  did  not  enjoy  his  meddling. 
So  great  became  the  ill-feeling  against  him  that 
before  the  end  of  the  voyage  he  was  imprisoned 
on  serious  charges  and  was  still  a  prisoner  when 
they  landed. 

On  the  opening  of  the  King's  box.it  was 
found  that  Smith  was  named  among  the  officers 
to  govern  the  colony,  which  at  once  made 
trouble.  The  puzzle  what  to  do  with  him  was  at 
last  settled  by  Smith  himself.  They  refused  to 
allow  him  to  take  his  part  in  the  government, 
and  he  demanded  a  trial  and  so  managed  it 


The  Different  Settlers  73 

that  he  was  acquitted  and  restored  to  his 
office. 

Among  the  directions  contained  in  the  box 
were  a  number  that  kept  the  colonists  from  doing 
what -was  best  for  themselves,  but  directed  them 
to  seek  for  a  passage  through  the  continent,  to  find 
gold  mines,  to  make  various  treaties  with  the 
natives,  and  to  seek  certain  kinds  of  merchandise 
to  be  sent  home.  If  the  party  had  been  rightly 
selected,  some  of  these  things  could  have  been 
done ;  but  as  it  was,  the  directions  were  simply 
foolish,  and  were  the  cause  of  constant  quarrels 
between  the  colonists  and  the  merchants  who  had 
sent  them  out. 

As  time  went  on,  many  of  the  absurd  directions 
were  changed,  and  the  colonists  were  allowed  to 
raise  such  crops  as  they  needed,  to  make  homes 
for  themselves,  to  lay  out  plantations,  and  to  deal 
with  the  Indians  as  they  saw  fit. 

In  the  case  of  the  New  Englanders,  the  Pil- 
griijis  suffered  from  the  same  stupidity.  The 
merchants  who  had  lent  them  money  to  pay  the 
expenses  of  their  journey  were  constantly  inter- 
fering with  the  affairs  of  the  new  colony,  and  it 
was  only  when  by  the  utmost  economy  and  in- 
dustry the  Pilgrims  had  secured  money  enough 
to  pay  off  their  debts,  and  were  free  to  do  what 


74  When  America  Was  New 

they  found  best  that  they  began  to  progress 
quickly  in  their  work  of  making  homes  in  the 
New  World. 

The  general  idea  of  that  time  was  that  colonies 
should  be  managed  by  their  mother  country  in 
such  way  as  to  make  money  for  those  who  had 
sent  out  the  settlers.  This  idea  had  come  down 
through  the  ages  from  the  Roman  and  Greek 
times,  and  was  never  questioned  save  by  a  few 
men  who  thought  for  themselves  and  who  could 
see  that  in  the  long  run  it  was  wise  to  let  a 
colony  make  its  own  prosperity  and  acquire 
strength  before  any  return  to  the  mother  country 
was  to  be  expected. 

The  whole  history  of  the  American  colonies 
helps  us  to  understand  how  bad  the  old  policy 
was.  In  every  community,  both  North  and 
South,  there  were  really  two  sets  of  officers.  One 
set  represented  the  mother  country,  or,  rather, 
represented  the  King  and  his  ministers,  the  other 
came  from  the  people  themselves,  understood 
their  wants  and  desires,  and  was  eager  to  secure 
for  them  freedom  from  interference.  The  first 
set  of  rulers  was  made  up  of  the  royal  gov- 
ernors and  the  officers  appointed  by  them. 
They  were  not  often  selected  because  of  their 
fitness  for  the  place,  but  rather  through  the  favor 


The  Different  Settlers  75 

of  the  King,  or  as  a  reward  rendered  for  services 
elsewhere  than  in  the  colony.  These  men  came 
across  the  sea  carrying  the  royal  commission 
giving  them  great  power  over  the  colonists,  and 
making  them  responsible  only  to  the  Crown. 

They  brought  to  the  colony  an  element  that  was 
entirely  foreign  to  its  life.  They  were  men 
trained  in  the  Court  at  home,  or  in  the  army,  used 
to  the  rights  of  aristocrats,  and  without  an  un- 
derstanding of  the  equality  that  came  from  work- 
ing side  by  side  in  the  new  country.  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  only  the  very  wisest  men  could  hope 
to  carry  out  the  wishes  of  the  King,  could  secure 
profits  for  the  merchants  at  home,  and  at  the  same 
time  deal  justly  and  fairly  by  the  colonists  them- 
selves. 

Another  great  source  of  dispute  was  the  ques- 
tion of  paying  these  governors.  It  was  natural 
that  the  King  and  his  ministers  should  argue  that 
the  governors  and  their  military  forces  were  sent 
out  for  the  good  of  the  colonists  themselves,  and 
that  therefore  from  the  colonists  themselves  should 
come  the  money  necessary  to  pay  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  was  quite  as  natural  that  the  colo- 
nists should  fail  to  see  just  what  good  they  gained 
from  the  presence  of  these  King's  officers. 
While  they  would  hardly  deny  that  some  govern- 


j6  When  America  Was  New 

ment  was  necessary,  they  could  not  help  seeing 
that  the  colonies  had  really  to  govern  themselves. 

Even  when  there  was  trouble  with  the  Indians, 
or  there  were  quarrels  between  the  colonies  of 
different  nations,  the  colonists  found  that  they 
had  to  do  most  of  the  fighting  for  themselves. 
It  is  true  that  when  the  colonies  first  began,  and 
were  weak  in  numbers  and  in  resources,  they 
were  very  ready  to  call  upon  the  mother-country 
to  send  soldiers  for  protection  when  it  was 
needed  ;  but  as  the  colonies  grew  in  numbers  and 
in  self-reliance  they  ceased  to  need  this  help  or  to 
find  it  worth  having  when  it  was  sent  or  to  be  a 
fair  return  for  the  heavy  taxes  they  were  com- 
pelled to  pay  to  provide  for  the  support  of  troops 
sent  across  the  ocean. 

The  kind  of  warfare  made  necessary  in  fight- 
ing the  Indians  was  quite  different  from  that  to 
which  the  English  regulars  had  been  trained  at 
home.  Although  the  regular  forces  made  a 
brave  showing  in  marching  through  the  little 
towns,  and  too  often  looked  down  upon  the 
colonial  troops  whom  they  despised  as  "  militia," 
yet  a  very  different  story  was  told  when  the 
militia  and  the  regulars  had  marched  into  the 
wilderness  and  fought  with  the  Red  Men.  The 
Indians  would  not,  of  course,  meet  the  regulars 


The  Different  Settlers  77 

upon  a  chosen  battle-field  or  fight  according  to 
civilized  rules ;  they  fought  each  man  for  himself 
in  a  series  of  skirmishes,  laid  ambushes,  and  at- 
tacked without  warning,  would  hang  around  the 
outskirts  of  a  marching  force,  picking  off  strag- 
glers whenever  they  could,  and,  in  short,  fought 
as  savages  fight — in  the  same  manner  that  a 
hunter  hunts  game. 

To  all  this  the  colonists  were  accustomed,  and 
they  learned  the  savage  tricks  from  the  Red  Men 
themselves,  becoming  even  more  skilful  in  wood- 
craft, and  were  generally  better  marksmen,  be- 
sides having  better  weapons. 

What  is  true  of  warfare  is  likewise  true  of  the 
daily  life  of  the  colonists.  Everything  had  to  be 
done  in  new  ways  because  it  was  done  under  new 
conditions.  There  was  no  time  for  the  "  red 
tape,"  that  is,  for  the  forms  and  ceremonies,  to 
which  the  dwellers  in  old  settled  countries  were 
accustomed.  The  ways  of  trying  cases  in  the 
law  courts,  the  methods  of  doing  business  by 
merchants,  the  manners  and  customs  of  the 
colonists  toward  one  another,  were  all  such  as  the 
conditions  in  the  new  country  made  necessary. 
Consequently  when  the  royal  governors  came 
over,  bringing  with  them  the  old  customs  and 
the  forms  to  which  they  were  used  in  the  home 


78  When  America  Was  New 

country,  there  was  bound  to  be  trouble  and  disa- 
greement, misunderstanding  and  quarreling.  And 
when  these  misunderstandings  brought  about 
serious  differences  between  the  colonists  and  the 
governors,  making  it  necessary  to  refer  the  mat- 
ter in  dispute  to  the  King  and  his  ministers  at 
home,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  colonists  should 
fail  to  win  the  sympathy  of  those  who  had  sent 
out  the  royal  governors  and  who  felt  bound  to 
support  them  if  possible. 

In  the  earlier  days  the  differences  between 
these  royal  governors  and  the  colonists  made 
trouble,  but  the  most  serious  quarrels  arose  in  the 
days  preceding  the  Revolution,  and  will  be  told 
when  we  look  into  the  causes  that  led  Americans 
to  throw  off  the  English  rule. 


CHAPTER  IV 
MARYLANDERS  AND  DUTCH 

ORIGINALLY,  Virginia   meant  all  the 
English     territory    in     America,    but 
gradually,  as  more  was  learned  about 
the  size  of  the  continent,  the  territory  of  Vir- 
ginia   was    cut   down  and  other  colonies  were 
carved  out  of  it.     One  of  these  colonies  so  carved 
out  was  Maryland,  a  grant  of  which  was  made,  as 
already  said,  to  two  noblemen,  favorites  of  King 
Charles  I. 

The  first  settlers  reached  Maryland  in  1634. 
The  party  was  made  up  of  twenty  gentlemen  and 
three  hundred  laboring  men.  Although  Lord 
Baltimore  was  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  the  settle- 
ment was  meant  especially  for  men  of  that  faith, 
yet  from  the  beginning  it  was  decided  that  there 
should  be  no  persecution  in  the  new  province. 
The  expedition  included  the  families  and  servants 
of  the  settlers,  and  was  accompanied  by  Jesuit 
missionaries.  They  bought  the  land  from  the 
Indians,  and  as  in  nearly  every  case  where  the 
natives  were  treated  with  justice,  there  was  no 
trouble  between  the  settlers  and  the  Indians. 
79 


80  When  America  Was  New 

Since  these  colonists  went  to  work  from  the 
beginning  with  the  intention  of  making  a  per- 
manent settlement,  there  is  a  complete  lack  of  the 
hardships  and  disasters  that  were  met  with  by  the 
first  settlers  in  Virginia.  The  Marylanders  built 
for  themselves  houses,  planted  orchards  and 
gardens,  kept  on  friendly  terms  with  the  Indians, 
and  even  lived  among  them,  and  enjoyed  peace 
and  quiet,  except  for  some  disputes  with  a  few 
of  the  Virginia  Colony,  who  were  unwilling  to 
admit  the  rights  of  the  new  colonists. 

Later  on,  another  similar  attempt  was  made  to 
question  the  Calverts'  authority,  and  this  time 
the  claimant,  a  piratical  individual  named  Ingle, 
succeeded  for  a  time  not  only  in  defying  Gov- 
ernor Calvert,  but  even  put  him  to  flight  and  des- 
troyed part  of  the  settlement.  But,  later,  Calvert 
returned  and  drove  the  mischief-maker  out  of  the 
province.  In  fact,  the  only  trouble  that  ever 
arose  in  the  early  days  of  the  Maryland  Colony 
was  caused  by  white  men  who  attempted  to  dis- 
pute the  right  of  the  Calverts  to  their  own  prov- 
ince. Another  of  these  attempts  was  made 
during  the  rule  of  Cromwell  in  England,  and  was 
supported  by  him,  but  when  Charles  II  came  to 
the  throne  the  Calverts  were  once  more  put  into 
power. 


Mary  landers  and  Dutch  8l 

There  were  a  few  questions  as  to  rights  of 
taxation,  and  so  on,  between  the  proprietors  and 
the  law-making  bodies  of  the  colonies  themselves, 
but,  in  general,  the  whole  line  of  Calverts  con- 
ducted the  affairs  of  the  province  with  wisdom 
and  prosperity. 

When  William  of  Orange  came  to  the  throne 
there  was  a  renewal  of  the  effort  on  the  part  of 
the  Puritan  element  in  the  province  to  take  the 
government  from  the  Calverts,  but  the  proprietor- 
ship remained  in  the  family  until  the  American 
Revolution  ended  the  proprietary  rule  over  Mary- 
land. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  history  of  the 
Maryland  Colony  is  in  certain  respects  different 
from  any  other. 

Woodrow  Wilson  points  out  in  his  "  History 
of  the  American  People  "  that  Englishmen  of  all 
sorts  and  creeds  began  to  desire  new  homes  in 
America  as  soon  as  the  earliest  settlers  had  shown 
that  it  was  possible  to  make  self-supporting  settle- 
ments. 

With  the  coming  of  the  Stuart  Kings  to  the 
English  throne  again,  an  uneasiness  among  the 
English  people  had  made  them  long  for  the 
liberty  of  life  in  the  new  country.  The  Puritans 
expected  no  favors  from  the  King,  and  the 


82  When  America  Was  New 

Roman  Catholics  also  feared  that  they  would 
not  be  long  free  from  persecution. 

It  was  to  this  feeling  that  the  settlement  of 
Maryland  was  due.  Lord  Baltimore,  from  having 
been  a  favorite  of  King  James  was  now  in  dis- 
favor with  the  English  people  because  he  had 
tried  to  bring  about  the  marriage  of  the  English 
Prince  Charles  to  a  Spanish  princess,  and  this 
match  had  been  given  up.  Lord  Baltimore  had 
been  interested  in  the  early  companies  that  had 
sent  colonists  to  America,  and  had  even  secured 
for  himself  a  tract  of  land  on  Newfoundland 
and  begun  a  colony  there.  The  hard  winter, 
causing  great  suffering  to  the  settlers,  and  the 
nearness  of  the  French,  who  had  shown  themselves 
enemies,  made  Lord  Baltimore  eager  to  found  a 
colony  further  southward,  and  so  he  had  decided 
to  ask  King  Charles,  who  was  then  on  the 
English  throne,  for  Maryland. 

These  lands  had  once  belonged  to  Virginia, 
but  had  been  taken  back  by  the  King.  The 
Virginians  tried  to  keep  the  King  from  granting 
the  charter,  but  after  the  death  of  the  first  Lord 
Baltimore  the  grant  was  made  to  his  son, 
Cecilius  Calvert,  who  determined  to  carry  out 
his  father's  plan. 

It  was  in  1633  that  Calvert  sent  out  his  colo- 


Marylanders  and  Dutch  83 

nists,  many  of  whom  were  Romanists,  and  there 
were,  as  we  said,  some  Jesuit  priests.  In  order  to 
keep  the  good-will  of  the  people  of  England 
and  at  the  same  time  to  make  a  home  for  Ro- 
manists, he  made  his  colony  free  to  people  of  all 
religious  faiths. 

At  first  the  Virginians  were  not  friendly  to 
these  newcomers,  who  had  settled  upon  the 
bank  of  a  little  stream  flowing  into  the  Potomac. 
But  the  Marylanders,  in  spite  of  the  attempts  of 
some  Virginians  to  give  them  trouble,  founded  a 
thriving  settlement,  kept  peace  with  the  Indians 
from  whom  they  had  fairly  bought  their  village 
site,  and  by  industry  and  prudence  so  prospered 
that  not  only  did  they  never  suffer  from  famine, 
but  during  their  first  year  raised  enough  grain  to 
send  a  shipload  to  New  England  to  be  traded  for 
fish. 

Wilson  says  that  Maryland  "  turned  out  an- 
other Virginia  in  its  ways  of  life  and  govern- 
ment," although  the  method  of  government 
differed  in  some  ways,  because  of  Lord  Balti- 
more's having  great  powers,  almost  as  great  as  if 
he  were  king  in  the  new  land. 

The  chief  difference  between  the  two  colonies 
was  the  freedom  granted  to  Roman  Catholics  to 
worship  in  their  own  way,  in  Maryland,  while 


84  When  America  Was  New 

the  Virginians  were  expected  to  belong  to  the 
Church  of  England.  The  plantation  life,  the 
commerce  upon  the  rivers,  and  the  nature  of  the 
crops,  did  not  differ  in  the  two  communities. 
But  Maryland  was  the  first  of  the  colonies  which 
was  established  on  a  large  territory  that  had  been 
given  to  one  man  as  if  it  were  his  own  private  es- 
tate. This  was  due  to  the  favor  of  the  King, 
who  wished  the  Cal verts  to  enjoy  all  the  power 
he  could  grant  them. 

As  far  back  as  the  days  of  William  the  Con- 
queror, it  had  been  the  custom  to  give  to  certain 
nobles  great  power  because  they  lived  on  lands 
so  far  from  the  king  that  it  would  not  be  pos- 
sible to  refer  things  to  him  for  his  judgment,  and 
yet  these  lands,  being  on  the  frontiers  of  the 
kingdom,  and  near  its  enemies  were  the  very 
places  where  quick  action  and  great  powers  in 
their  rulers  were  most  needed.  One  of  the  last 
nobles  to  hold  such  powers  was  the  Bishop  of 
Durham,  who  was  on  the  Scottish  border  and  so 
held  a  castle  most  important  while  Scotch  and 
English  were  at  war ;  and  to  the  Calverts  were 
given  the  same  powers  that  these  bishops  had 
over  Durham.  So  the  Lords  Baltimore  were 
really  the  rulers  of  Maryland. 

Although  the  Hudson  River  was  discovered 


Marylanders  and  Dutch  85 

by  and  bore  the  name  of  an  English  captain,  he 
was  in  the  employ  of  a  Dutch  trading-company, 
the  West  India  Company,  whose  charter  gave  it 
the  right  to  establish  trading-posts  and  to  govern 
them  in  the  new  territories  for  the  benefit  of  the 
sturdy,  thrifty,  and  hardy  Netherlanders. 

The  little  home  country  that  the  Dutch  had 
conquered  from  the  sea  by  building  dykes  or 
dams  to  keep  the  ocean  out  had  been  forced  by 
its  position  to  breed  a  race  of  sailors.  At  first 
subject  to  Spain,  the  Dutch  became  Protestants 
and  revolted  against  their  Catholic  rulers.  In  a 
bloody  struggle  lasting  eighty  years  they  won 
their  liberty  and  became  an  independent  nation, 
strong  on  land,  invincible  on  the  ocean,  for  in 
fighting  against  Spain  for  religious  liberty,  the 
Dutchmen  had  made  for  themselves  a  navy  that 
was  long  the  best  in  the  world.  Few  of  the 
nations  of  the  time  seemed  better  fitted  to  make 
and  keep  colonies.  Their  territory  in  America 
was  part  of  that  which  England  considered  as  be- 
longing to  the  Virginia  Company.  But  the 
Dutch  did  not  at  first  care  much  for  that. 

They  found  out,  through  a  few  adventurous 
men,  that  there  was  money  to  be  made  by  trad- 
ing with  the  Indians  for  furs,  and  they  also  hoped 
to  raise  wheat  in  large  quantities.  At  first  these 


86  When  America  Was  New 

men  built  only  a  rude  trading-post  far  up  the 
Hudson  River,  near  the  Indian  hunting  grounds, 
and  also  a  group  of  huts  where  the  city  of  New 
York  now  stands.  By  the  time  that  the  Plym- 
outh colony  was  well  started,  the  Dutch  had  only 
about  two  hundred  colonists  in  four  or  five  trad- 
ing-posts on  the  Hudson,  in  the  Jerseys,  and 
upon  Long  Island. 

The  long  wars  against  Spain  had  made  the 
English  and  the  Dutch  good  friends,  since  both 
were  Protestants  and  had  been  righting  Catholic 
Spain ;  many  English  merchants  were  in  the 
Dutch  seaports,  many  English  students  studied 
in  the  Dutch  colleges,  and  during  the  Spanish 
wars  the  Dutch  armies  were  full  of  volunteers 
from  England.  Besides  these  English  in  the  low 
countries,  there  were  those  who,  like  the  Pil- 
grims, had  gone  there  for  the  sake  of  religious 
freedom.  Dutchmen  also  had  been  driven  into 
England  from  those  parts  of  the  Netherlands 
conquered  from  time  to  time  by  the  Spanish 
armies.  In  the  English  towns  along  the  coast 
were  clever  Dutch  workmen  who  taught  the 
English  their  trades  and,  because  they  were  for- 
eigners, the  Dutch  were  not  interfered  with  in 
their  religious  beliefs.  Altogether,  the  relations 
of  the  Dutch  and  the  English  were  for  many 


MAP  III 

FRENCH,  ENGLISH,  DUTCH, 


PROVINCES 
A.D.1655 

iFrench     ^English    m  Dutch 
Spanish 


Marylanders  and  Dutch  87 

years  very  friendly,  but  all  this  was  changed 
when  England  sought  to  make  her  colonies  in 
America  strong  and  to  get  possession  of  the  new 
land. 

At  first  there  had  been  no  intention  of  making 
them  more  than  posts  for  trade,  and  the  growth 
of  the  Dutch  colonies  was  very  slow  and  so 
brought  little  profit  to  the  merchants  in  the 
Netherlands.  Consequently  the  company  at 
home  made  up  their  minds  to  invite  settlers,  and 
offered  great  tracts  of  land  to  those  who  would 
settle  them,  giving  the  owners  of  these  tracts 
powers  to  rule  in  the  new  country  with  little  in- 
terference. A  number  of  rich  merchants  were 
attracted  by  this  offer  and  tried  to  establish  large 
estates,  but  very  few  of  them  succeeded.  The 
same  great  powers  that  attracted  the  rich  land- 
owners kept  farmers  from  putting  themselves  un- 
der the  authority  of  these  men,  since  they  could 
live  in  a  freer  way  at  home  ;  and  besides  times 
were  good  in  Holland,  and  there  was  little  to 
tempt  them  to  America. 

So  the  Dutch  Company  changed  the  first  plan 
for  increasing  the  colonies,  and  afterward  made 
offers  to.  give  smaller  tracts  to  the  settlers  them- 
selves, and  to  pay  the  passage  of  those  settlers 
who  would  go  out  to  America.  They  also  no 


88  When  America  Was  New 

longer  required  that  these  should  be  Dutchmen, 
but  invited  the  men  of  all  nations  to  come  to 
the  Dutch  Colonies  with  equal  chances  to  trade. 
This  brought  great  numbers  of  small  settlers,  es- 
pecially those  who  sought  for  complete  liberty  of 
conscience.  The  Dutch  had  always  been  liberal 
in  this  respect  at  home,  and  they  were  wise 
enough  to  give  the  same  freedom  of  thought  in 
the  New  World. 

The  colony,  however,  despite  this  growth,  was 
not  wisely  governed  by  the  men  sent  over  to 
take  charge.  These  men  interfered  too  much  in 
the  affairs  of  the  colonists,  were  haughty  and 
domineering,  showed  bad  management  in  their 
treatment  of  the  Indians,  and  at  length  brought 
about  such  a  state  of  things  that  there  was  no 
safety  from  the  natives  except  near  the  larger 
settlements. 

Altogether,  the  Dutch  colonies  could  not  be 
said  to  be  very  successful,  although  there  were 
advantages  in  their  position  that  ought,  properly 
used,  to  have  made  them  masters  of  all  America. 
One  of  these  was  their  nearness  to  the  Indian 
mint,  or  place  for  making  money.  The  Indians 
used  for  currency  a  part  of  the  oyster  or  clam- 
shells that  were  found  in  large  quantities  on  Long 
Island.  From  this  with  great  labor  were  ground 


Marylanders  and  Dutch  89 

out  small  beads,  white  and  purple,  which  were 
drilled  with  a  flint  awl  and  strung  so  as  to  make 
necklaces  and  belts.  This  was  the  well-known 
"  wampum."  It  was  valued,  at  first,  for  ornament 
by  all  the  Indian  tribes,  and  afterward  became 
recognized  as  a  sign  of  power  and  wealth,  and 
then  as  currency,  a  currency  that  must  always  be 
somewhat  rare  and  therefore  valuable,  since  it 
was  made  only  by  great  labor.  The  Dutch, 
being  near  the  place  where  this  wampum  was 
made,  could  obtain  it  more  cheaply  than  other 
colonists,  and  it  was  a  very  easy  and  compact 
way  to  carry  value  when  they  went  into  the 
woods  upon  trading  expeditions.  They  also 
made  it  for  themselves,  and  having  better  tools 
made  it  more  easily  than  the  Indians. 

A  second  great  advantage  was  the  wonderfully 
fine  harbor  of  New  York,  from  which  rivers  led 
into  the  interior,  making  trade  with  the  Indians 
cheap  and  easy,  by  means  of  small  boats.  Young 
men  were  sent  out  to  trade,  and  made  long 
journeys  for  the  merchants. 

A  reason  given  for  the  failure  of  the  Dutch  to 
prosper  was  the  very  thriftiness  and  prudence  of 
the  Dutch  character.  It  was  harder  to  tempt 
Dutchmen  to  go  across  the  sea  and  to  face  the 
perils  and  uncertainties  of  life  in  the  new  land. 


90  When  America  Was  New 

Another  reason  was  the  lack  of  belief  in  the 
colony  by  the  governors  at  home.  Sydney 
Fisher1  says  that  these  men  "  had  allowed  it  to 
become  the  plundering-ground  for  a  greedy,  sel- 
fish corporation  monopoly,  and  its  rapacious 
governors.  They  had  not  the  force  of  character 
and  energy  to  settle  and  rule  it  properly."  After 
more  than  forty  years,  though  the  Dutch  lived  in 
well-built  towns,  having  strong  houses  made  of 
brick  brought  from  Holland,  the  population  was 
less  than  ten  thousand  and  could  barely  maintain 
itself  at  a  time  when  the  New  Englanders,  in  a 
much  worse  country,  numbered  nearly  five  times 
as  many,  and  were  thriving. 

The  final  end  of  the  Dutch  control  was  brought 
about  largely  because  the  New  Englanders  came 
to  believe  (or  pretended  to  believe)  that  there  was 
a  plot  between  the  Dutch  and  the  Indians  to 
massacre  the  English  settlers.  It  was  demanded 
by  the  American  colonists  that  the  English  King 
should  take  possession  on  the  ground  that  the 
Dutch  Colony  was  really  within  the  limits  of  the 
territory  granted  to  the  Virginia  Colony,  and  an 
English  fleet  was  sent  to  demand  the  surrender 
of  the  Dutch.  It  was,  of  course,  impossible  for 

1 "  Men,  Women  and  Manners  in  Colonial  Times." 


Marylanders  and  Dutch  91 

the  outnumbered  Dutch  to  resist,  and  except  for 
a  brief  period  when  the  Dutch  again  took  control, 
the  New  Netherlands  Colony  passed  into  English 
hands,  little  to  the  regret  even  of  most  of  the 
Dutch  settlers  themselves,  who  believed  that  the 
English  would  govern  them  better  than  their  own 
people  had  done.  Some,  however,  returned  to 
Holland. 

After  twenty  years  of  English  rule,  the  colony 
had  increased  so  that  it  was  nearly  doubled,  and 
the  trade  of  New  York  became  of  much  impor- 
tance. 

The  fur-trade  of  America  was,  as  we  have  said, 
one  of  the  earliest  that  brought  great  profits. 
The  first  to  take  advantage  of  it  were  the  French. 
They  alone  were  able  to  travel  in  the  interior  of 
the  continent,  being  friendly  with  the  Indians 
there.  They  had  set  up  little  trading-posts  in  the 
forests,  along  the  rivers,  and  by  the  best  known 
Indian  trails.  The  natives  were  excellent  hunt- 
ers and  trappers,  animals  of  all  sorts  abounded, 
and  the  trade  was  most  profitable,  both  to  the 
Indians  and  to  the  white  men,  each  parting 
with  what  cost  them  little  and  receiving  in  ex- 
change something  more  valuable  to  them.  The 
Indians  were  glad  to  receive  for  their  furs  the 
knives,  axes,  beads,  blankets,  powder,  guns, 


92  When  America  Was  New 

and  liquor  they  could  not  make  for  them- 
selves. 

It  was  the  hope  of  sharing  in  this  trade  that 
had  brought  the  Dutch  over  to  the  Hudson 
River,  whose  course  lay  through  great  forests 
that  made  rich  hunting-grounds.  Katharine 
Coman l  declares  that  at  one  time  an  "  annual 
harvest "  of  66,000  skins  was  sent  over  to  the 
furriers  of  Europe  from  the  American  Colonies. 

We  can,  to-day,  hardly  understand  how  great 
was  the  use  of  furs  a  few  hundred  years  ago. 
Methods  of  heating  were  very  bad,  and  houses 
were  cold,  clothing  was  dear,  and  the  wearing  of 
furs  was  almost  a  necessity.  Wherever  there 
were  colonists  in  the  New  World  the  trade  in 
furs  became  to  them  a  most  important  source  of 
wealth,  and  hardy  men  made  long  journeys 
wherever  the  Indians  were  not  too  hostile,  to 
trade  with  the  natives  for  them.  This  fur-trade 
was  especially  important  in  the  more  northern 
colonies,  where  the  cold  weather  both  made 
agriculture  less  profitable  and  at  the  same  time 
caused  the  fur-bearing  animals  to  abound.  For- 
tunes were  made  in  the  fur-trade  at  the  North,  as 
they  were  made  in  the  South  by  raising  tobacco. 

i "  Industrial  History  of  the  United  States." 


Marylanders  and  Dutch  93 

So  long  as  the  land  was  covered  with  thick 
forests  there  was  no  lack  of  fur-bearing  animals. 
One  could  set  traps  almost  anywhere  with  the 
certainty  of  finding  them  filled.  Nearly  every 
stream  in  the  northern  part  of  New  England  was 
full  of  the  "  villages  "  of  beaver  houses,  and  each 
beaver-skin  was  worth  from  twenty  to  twenty- 
five  shillings,  so  the  result  of  a  single  season's 
work  might  easily  make  a  large  income  for  any 
hard-working  trapper. 

Rarer  and  even  more  valuable  were  the  skins 
of  the  otter,  of  the  black  fox,  and  the  seal. 
From  the  New  England  Colonies  ships  were  sent 
north  to  hunt  along  the  coast,  and  these  brought 
back  cargoes  of  skins.  The  Indians,  however, 
through  lifelong  practice  were  the  best  trappers 
and  hunters,  and  readily  sold  pelts  in  exchange 
for  the  trinkets,  blankets,  fire-arms  and  ammuni- 
tion. 

Of  course,  with  the  clearing  away  of  the 
forests  and  the  settlement  of  the  country,  the 
fur-bearing  animals  became  rarer  or  were  driven 
into  remoter  parts  of  the  country,  and  so  the 
trade  rapidly  declined  as  the  wilder  regions  were 
filled  with  people. 

Besides  what  was  exported  and  sold,  the  use 
of  furs  and  skins  among  the  colonists  themselves 


94  When  America  Was  New 

was  very  great,  furnishing  them  with  clothing 
and  warm  robes,  and  in  the  outlying  settlements 
they  were  used  sometimes  for  bedding,  floor 
coverings,  and  curtains. 

In  the  commerce  of  the  colonies  the  fur-trade 
brought  the  American  settlers  into  sharp  com- 
petition, at  first,  with  the  Dutch  until  Dutch  rule 
was  over,  and  for  many  years  afterward  with  the 
French  along  the  interior  rivers  and  the  northern 
border. 

In  this  trade  the  French  usually  had  the  ad- 
vantage because  of  their  ability  to  get  along 
better  with  the  Indians.  This  may  have  been 
due  to  several  reasons.  First,  the  earliest  mis- 
sionaries to  the  Indians  were  Jesuit  priests,  and 
the  converts  that  they  made,  being  Romanists 
were  more  friendly  with  the  French  Catholics, 
than  with  the  English  Protestants.  There  was 
not  among  the  French  the  same  dislike  of  the 
dark-skinned  races  that  was  held  by  the  English, 
and,  thirdly,  the  French  trappers  and  foresters 
not  seldom  married  Indian  squaws,  and  thus 
came  to  know  the  Indian  customs  and  to  be  re- 
ceived as  friends  among  the  tribes. 

This,  in  later  years,  at  the  time  of  the  Indian 
and  colonial  wars,  often  caused  many  Indians  to 
take  sides  against  the  English. 


Marylanders  and  Dutch  95 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  great  attraction 
that  brought  Englishmen  across  the  seas  was  the 
hope  of  finding  gold,  silver,  and  precious  stones, 
as  the  Spaniards  had  done  in  the  West  Indies. 
This  idea  lasted  for  many  years,  except  in  the 
minds  of  a  few  clear-headed  men  like  Captain 
John  Smith,  who  early  wrote  home  that  it  was  a 
waste  of  time  to  seek  for  these  things,  and  that 
there  was  more  wealth  to  be  had  from  the  land 
and  from  the  fisheries  than  from  all  the  mines  of 
the  Spaniards. 

The  first  proof  of  the  great  value  and  richness 
of  the  land  was  seen  when  Virginia  raised  big 
crops  of  tobacco  and  corn ;  but  it  was  learned  as 
time  went  on  that  America  had  nearly  every  sort 
of  climate  and  could  raise  corn,  fruits,  vegetables, 
and  all  products  in  abundance. 

This  gave  the  English  a  second  idea — that 
their  colonies  would  make  an  excellent  place  to 
provide  work  for  the  men  who  had  been  unable 
to  find  it  at  home.  Her  writers  said  much  about 
this,  and  her  statesmen  learned  to  value  the 
colonies  and  to  help  their  growth  with  this 
mainly  in  mind.  Merchants  also  came  to  think 
that  companies  sending  settlers  to  America 
would  bring  them  great  returns  for  money  spent 
in  that  way. 


96  When  America  Was  New 

As  soon  as  the  colonies  came  to  be  made  up 
of  farms  and  plantations,  these  began  to  ex- 
change what  they  raised  for  goods  sent  from 
England,  and  also  with  one  another,  and  then  it 
was  shown  how  easy  a  way  of  getting  from  one 
colony  to  another  was  provided  by  the  deep 
rivers  and  the  coast  with  its  many  harbors.  But 
the  English  rulers  at  home  agreed  with  most  of 
the  statesmen  of  their  time  in  thinking  that 
colonies  were  'made  for  the  benefit  of  their  own 
land,  and  so  it  was  not  long  before  they  made 
many  laws  meant  to  keep  the  colonies  from 
trading  with  other  countries,  for  they  had  good 
markets  nearer  than  England  in  the  West  India 
Islands.  They  also  found  in  France  and  in  Hol- 
land good  markets  for  many  of  the  things  they 
raised. 

So,  although  these  laws  to  keep  the  trade  for 
Great  Britain  were  passed,  reports  made  by  gov- 
ernment agents  of  the  time  show  that  the  laws 
were  often  broken,  perhaps  broken  more  often 
than  kept,  and  that  all  sorts  of  cargoes  were  by 
one  trick  or  another  sent  to  the  West  Indies 
settlements  in  exchange  for  sugar  and  rum,  and 
to  France,  where  such  forest  products  as  timber, 
pitch,  tar,  and  clapboards,  were  readily  sold  and 
cargoes  of  wine  could  be  secured.  All  through 


Marylanders  and  Dutch  97 

the  colonial  days  there  was  much  trouble  over 
this  smuggling,  and  it  helped  to  make  ill-feeling 
between  the  old  country  and  the  new. 

Other  things  sent  out  by  the  colonists  were 
ship-timbers,  and  furs,  which  brought  a  high 
price ;  and  the  whaling  trade,  particularly  in  oil, 
ivory,  and  spermaceti  for  making  candles,  began 
just  as  the  trade  in  furs  was  about  to  lessen. 

As  soon  as  the  colonists  began  to  establish 
manufactures  and  to  make  the  same  things  that 
were  made  abroad,  there  was  complaint  from 
English  merchants  that  their  business  was  inter- 
fered with ;  and  then  the  English  Parliament 
would  pass  laws  putting  taxes  upon  such  prod- 
ucts from  America.  In  this  way  the  making  of 
hats  from  beaver-skins,  for  example,  was  soon 
brought  to  an  end  in  America. 

The  southern  colonies  raising  only  their  few 
big  crops,  gave  little  time  to  manufactures,  and 
imported  from  England  nearly  everything  they 
used,  which  kept  them  in  high  favor  with  the 
English  merchants. 

The  great  trading-routes  in  America  consisted 
of  only  a  few  well-made  roads  and  those  greater 
rivers  that  were  broad  enough  to  allow  freight 
boats  to  make  their  way  up-stream  against  the 
currents.  Usually  there  was  but  one  well-made 


98  When  America  Was  New 

road  between  the  greater  colonies,  since  the  work 
of  making  roads  was  very  hard  and  expensive. 
They  could  not  spare  the  labor  to  level  hills,  drain 
marshes,  or  bridge  streams,  except  near  the  big 
towns. 

Along  the  coast  where  there  were  good  har- 
bors, the  people  had  great  advantages  and  could 
cheaply  send  their  products  to  foreign  markets. 
The  most  important  trade-route  in  the  northern 
colonies  was  the  Hudson  River,  which  not  only 
made  traffic  easy  as  far  as  Albany,  but  then  led 
to  the  Great  Lakes,  by  which  Canada  and  the 
more  western  settlements  could  be  reached  in  sail- 
ing vessels. 

Philadelphia  and  Baltimore  for  example  grew 
to  great  cities  because  they  were  on  waterways  or 
easily  reached  by  means  of  good  roads.  In  the 
southern  colonies  there  was  less  road-building  be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  nearly  all  the  people  lived 
on  the  coast  or  upon  waterways  leading  well  in- 
land. This  brought  about  the  founding  and 
growth  of  the  seaports  Norfolk,  Charleston  and 
Savannah. 

Commerce  with  the  old  country  was  mainly  in 
timber,  furs,  tobacco,  whale-oil,  whalebone,  cider, 
rum  and  rice.  In  return  for  these  colonial  car- 
goes the  vessels  came  back  loaded  with  linen  and 


A    DUTCH    WEDDING;     SHOWING    COSTUMES    WORN    IN 
EARLY    AMERICAN    DAYS. 


Marylanders  and  Dutch  99 

woolen  from  England  and  Holland,  iron  and 
wool  from  Spain,  salt,  spices,  wine,  and  fruit,  from 
other  countries.  In  such  commercial  voyages, 
the  vessels  often  spent  years  before  returning 
home. 

There  was  at  first  very  little  travel  in  America 
except  by  means  of  waterways.  All  the  early  ex- 
plorations of  Virginia  were  made  by  means  of  small 
boats  which  followed  the  water-courses  and  made 
the  explorers  safe  against  Indian  attacks.  The  fact 
that  nearly  all  the  early  colonies  were  upon  the 
seacoast,  or  were  near  rivers  and  bays,  and  also 
the  fact  that  in  the  New  World  timber  was  cheap 
and  easily  obtained,  caused  the  American  colo- 
nists to  give  themselves  largely  to  ship-building. 

Not  far  from  the  shores  there  was  plenty  of 
oak  for  building  the  hulls  of  their  vessels,  spruce 
trees  that  made  excellent  masts,  and  in  the  days 
when  all  commerce  was  carried  on  in  wooden 
vessels,  there  was  nothing  about  a  vessel  that 
could  not  be  made  in  the  colonies.  It  naturally 
followed  that  the  builders  of  ships,  the  ship  car- 
penters and  sailors,  found  ready  employment  in 
the  colonies,  and  that  the  earliest  men  to  prosper 
in  the  northern  colonies  were  those  who  were 
connected  with,  the  sea  and  coast  traffic. 

The  laws  at  home  also  favored  this  industry. 


loo         When  America  Was  New 

The  English  put  a  premium  upon  the  manufac- 
ture of  hemp  for  ship-rigging,  paying  the  colo- 
nists six  pounds  (an  amount  that  may  perhaps 
be  considered  equal  to  a  hundred  dollars  to-day) 
for  every  ton  of  hemp  that  was  exported  to  the 
home  country.  But  hemp  will  grow  only  in  a 
fertile  country,  and  therefore  it  was  produced 
mainly  in  the  southern  colonies.  A  bounty  also 
was  offered  for  masts  sent  to  England,  and  reg- 
ulations were  made  to  prevent  the  early  settlers 
from  wasting  trees  fit  for  his  Majesty's  vessels  in 
England.  An  official  was  sent  through  the 
forests  to  cut  the  royal  mark  upon  such  trees  as 
they  thought  good  for  masts.  This  mark  was 
what  is  known  as  the  "  broad  arrow  "  and  there 
was  a  very  heavy  fine  for  felling  trees  so  marked. 

Notwithstanding  all  these  attempts  on  the  part 
of  England  to  keep  the  ship  timber  for  their  own 
navy  and  merchant  vessels,  the  colonists  found  a 
greater  profit  in  sending  the  lumber  to  the  West 
Indies,  Spain  and  Portugal. 

Other  things  of  which  the  production  was  en- 
couraged were  tar,  pitch,  rosin,  and  turpentine, 
all  of  which  were  also  used  in  ship-building  and 
similar  industries.  Owing  to  the  great  profits  of 
these  products,  from  the  pine  forests,  the  English 
merchants  received  from  the  colonies  more  than 


Marylanders  and  Dutch  101 

they  could  use  at  home,  and  were  compelled  to 
ship  it  again  to  foreign  countries. 

Remembering  these  bounties  and  laws  will  help 
us  to  understand  the  general  purpose  of  the  Eng- 
lish to  make  their  colonies  profitable  only  to  them- 
selves, and  the  same  purpose  made  them  forbid 
Americans  to  ship  tobacco  in  any  but  English  ves- 
sels or  to  English  harbors. 

There  were  also  taxes  put  upon  cargoes  which 
were  sent  from  one  part  of  the  colonies  to  an- 
other along  the  coast,  and  since  in  so  new  a 
country  there  were  many  miles  unwatched  along 
the  coast,  smuggling  became  very  common. 
Hogsheads  of  tobacco  were  loaded  by  night  upon 
big  sailing  vessels  called  "  lighters,"  and  these 
lighters  took  the  smuggled  loads  either  to  foreign 
vessels  that  awaited  them  at  sea,  or  sailed  along 
the  coast  to  other  colonies  where  the  cargo  could 
be  secretly  sold  without  paying  the  taxes. 

To  prevent  this  smuggling,  vessels  of  the 
British  navy  sailed  up  and  down  the  coast,  but, 
naturally,  the  native  sailors  came  to  know  the 
coast  better  than  the  men  from  abroad  and  found 
little  difficulty  in  escaping  them. 

All  these  things  helped  to  make  the  Americans 
excellent  sailors  and  clever  workmen.  The  fact 
that  they  had  to  depend  upon  themselves  for  all 


1O2         When  America  Was  New 

the  various  things  they  needed  in  the  new  coun- 
try gave  them  cleverness  in  tinkering,  inventing, 
and  contriving  means  of  doing  work  without 
proper  appliances  or  tools. 

So  greatly  did  ship-building  increase  that  it 
was  not  many  years  before  the  colonists  were 
able  not  only  to  supply  the  vessels  for  the  fishing 
trade,  the  great  whale-ships,  and  the  smaller 
boats  that  sailed  along  the  coast,  but  even  to 
build  ships  to  be  sold  abroad. 

Along  the  Massachusetts  coast  had  grown  up 
thriving  ports,  and  a  ready  market.  Quick  em- 
ployment was  found  for  every  kind  of  craft.  In 
New  York,  ships  were  built  along  the  Hudson 
and  supplied  the  New  York  trade.  In  the  south- 
ern colonies  also  a  number  of  vessels  were  built, 
but  fewer  than  in  the  North,  because  the  people 
found  the  raising  of  tobacco  and  other  agricul- 
tural products  more  profitable,  and  also  because 
more  vessels  from  England  came  to  the  southern 
coasts  than  to  the  North,  and  thus  there  was  less 
need  for  them  to  build  their  own.  Now  and 
then  great  planters  sailed  their  own  vessels,  but 
usually  they  were  content  to  hire  vessels  built  in 
the  northern  colonies  or  to  use  those  sent  from 
England. 

In  regard  to  the  smuggling,  it  must  be  remem- 


Mary  landers  and  Dutch  103 

bered  that  very  few  of  the  people  of  the  colonies 
considered  it  a  serious  wrong.  Apparently  they 
thought  that  it  was  unfair  to  tax  them,  and  that 
if  they  could  escape  paying  taxes  they  were  not 
greatly  to  be  blamed.  Consequently,  men  other- 
wise very  respectable  were  engaged  in  smuggling 
or  made  fortunes  out  of  its  profits. 


CHAPTER  V 
NEW  WORLD  LIVING 

THE  difficulty  of  making  houses  by  the 
settlers  was  not  the  lack  of  building 
material.  The  forests  were  only  too 
thick,  and  in  them  was  every  sort  of  wood ;  clay 
and  limestone  were  to  be  had  in  nearly  every 
place.  But  they  could  make  neither  bricks  nor 
mortar,  for  lack  of  kilns  and  tools.  The  great 
rocks  for  the  same  reason  could  not  be  broken 
up  and  shaped  without  more  work  and  time  than 
they  could  give  to  house-building.  So  they 
chose  the  readier  ways. 

The  log  cabins  were  the  easiest  to  make,  but 
the  poorer  settlers  often  had  not  the  teams  to 
draw  heavy  logs,  and  could  not  spare  time  to 
chop  and  roll  them  until  they  had  earned  some 
money  by  working  for  others.  Digging  of  caves 
in  the  side  of  a  hill,  and  building  little  shanties 
made  of  poles  and  brush,  not  unlike  the  camps 
sportsmen  make,  were  the  first  plans  adopted. 
Houses  also  were  made  of  sods  laid  upon  poles. 
Roofing  was  sometimes  of  bark,  or  the.  houses 
104 


New  World  Living  105 

were  thatched  with  the  rushes.  In  both  North 
and  South  the  settlers  at  first  sometimes  copied 
the  dwellings  made  by  the  Indians,  building  little 
huts  covered  with  woven  grass  mats  or  with  the 
skins  of  animals. 

Alice  Morse  Earle l  tells  us  that  in  1626,  on  New 
York  Island,  all  but  one  of  thirty  dwellings  for 
Europeans  were  made  of  bark.  The  log  cabins, 
roofed  with  logs,  partly  filled  in  with  chips  and 
made  tight  with  clay,  were  the  first  comfortable 
dwellings  in  many  of  the  colonies.  The  doors 
were  hung  on  wooden  or  leather  hinges. 

The  same  author  describes  how  the  earliest  of 
these  log  houses  were  made  by  digging  a  shallow 
cellar,  setting  up  logs  side  by  side  to  make  the 
walls,  and  then  lining  them  with  other  logs  set 
crosswise  and  smoothed  with  an  axe. 

The  beds  were  little  shelves  or  planks  fastened 
at  one  edge  to  the  wall  and  supported  at  the 
other  by  posts  set  in  the  ground.  Upon  these 
rude  bunks  hemlock  boughs  made  a  soft  bedding. 

To  keep  these  houses  warm,  they  were  banked 
up  with  earth  on  the  outside,  and  in  winter  the 
snow  piled  up  around  them  helped  to  make  them 
tight.  The  best  of  the  colonists'  houses  were 
made  of  brick,  as  soon  as  they  could  afford  to 

»  "  Home  Life  in  Colonial  Days." 


106         When  America  Was  New 

import  them.  The  Dutch  in  New  Amsterdam, 
being  very  thrifty,  soon  made  for  themselves 
houses  that  were  like  those  in  Holland,  and  these 
were  greatly  admired  by  other  colonists  for  their 
neat  plastering,  their  ornamental  brickwork,  and 
their  clean,  sanded  floors. 

Windows  in  the  early  days  were  always  very 
small,  both  because  glass  was  rare  and  dear  and 
because  this  made  the  houses  warmer. 

Another  luxury  rare  in  the  colonies  was  iron ; 
and  so  the  first  houses  were  often  built  by  fasten- 
ing logs  together  with  wooden  pins  and  pegs. 
The  iron  was  so  much  more  valuable  in  the  early 
days  than  timber,  that  the  Government  of  Vir- 
ginia at  one  time  agreed  to  give  any  settler  who 
was  leaving  his  house  as  many  nails  as  he  had 
used  in  building  it ;  and  this  was  done  to  keep 
the  old  house  from  being  burned  by  the  owner  so 
that  the  nails  might  be  gathered  from  the  ashes. 

Building  chimneys  was  at  first  a  troublesome 
matter  in  places  where  stone  or  brick  could  not 
be  had,  and  the  chimneys  were  made  of  plastered 
sticks.  There  was  great  danger  from  fire,  and  it 
was  not  long  before  laws  had  to  be  passed  for- 
bidding these  wood  and  clay  chimneys. 

In  New  England  it  was  usual  for  each  house- 
holder to  keep  on  the  premises  a  fire-ladder, 


New  World  Living  107 

hooked  poles,  and  fire-buckets  made  of  leather. 
When  an  alarm  of  fire  was  given,  these  buckets 
were  carried  to  the  burning  house,  two  lines  of 
neighbors  were  formed  from  the  well  or  a  stream, 
and  the  buckets  were  passed  along  from  hand  to 
hand  full  and  returned  empty,  thus  giving  a  con- 
stant supply — until,  as  too  often  happened,  the 
well  ran  dry.  The  hooked  poles  were  used  to 
pull  down  light  structures,  so  that  they  might 
not  feed  the  flames.  In  1650  the  first  fire  engine 
used  in  this  country  was  made  by  Joseph  Jenks, 
a  Welsh  iron-worker  who  was  brought  to  the 
colony  to  begin  the  iron  industry  of  Massachu- 
setts. 

The  interior  walls  of  the  earliest  houses  were 
often  made  of  clay  stiffened  by  mixing  it  with 
chopped  straw  and  whitened  by  putting  on  a 
paste  made  of  powdered  clam  shells  and  water. 
For  floors,  either  earth  or  axe-smoothed  timbers 
served.  Until  the  late  colonial  days,  the  use  of 
paint  was  very  rare  and  it  was  not  to  be  found  in 
any  except  the  few  expensive  dwellings  built  of 
imported  material  by  rich  colonists. 

The  rude  settlers'  cabins  of  the  South  were  re- 
placed by  substantial  houses  as  soon  as  the  plan- 
tations began  to  bring  their  owners  plenty  of 
money  to  import  building  materials  from  England 


lo8         When  America  Was  New 

and  to  pay  men  for  building  better  homes  in 
Virginia. 

The  way  of  life  in  Virginia  was  not  like  that  of 
any  other  part  of  the  country.  We  have  already 
told  how  the  fertile  soil  made  it  best  to  raise  to- 
bacco and  other  crops  on  big  farms.  The  land 
was  planted,  the  crop  was  gathered,  and  then, 
when  the  soil  began  to  be  used  up,  the  crop  next 
year  was  raised  in  a  new  place  cleared  for  the 
purpose,  and  the  old  field  was  left  to  grow  up  in 
pine-forests  again. 

Even  in  growing  grain,  they  did  not  often  try 
to  bring  back  the  richness  of  the  soil  by  chang- 
ing, as  was  done  in  the  Old  Country,  to  a  crop 
of  clover  grass  now  and  then.  The  Virginia 
planter  could  better  afford  to  clear  a  new  field 
than  to  bother  with  the  old  one.  All  during 
colonial  times,  when  land  was  plenty,  this  waste- 
ful way  of  farming  was  kept  up  ;  so  these  planters 
were  really  "  spending  their  capital,"  as  the  his- 
torians express  it. 

But  so  long  as  rich  land  was  plenty,  no  men  in 
America  lived  so  well  or  enjoyed  wealth  like 
that  of  the  big  plantation  owners.  In  fact,  nearly 
all  of  the  life  in  Virginia  was  carried  on  in  these 
enormous  plots  of  ground  under  the  leadership 
of  their  owners. 


New  World  Living  109 

There  were  almost  no  towns  at  the  South. 
Even  near  the  coast,  where  we  might  expect 
there  would  be  a  need  for  great  shipping-houses, 
not  many  towns  did  grow  up,  simply  because  the 
wide  rivers  dividing  into  many  branches  and  run- 
ning far  up  into  the  country  enabled  most  of  the 
planters  to  build  docks  on  their  own  estates  and 
to  load  vessels  right  there.  Also,  the  planters 
could  receive  at  these  landing  places  the  cargoes 
of  goods  sent  from  England  in  return. 

Nor  was  there  any  need  for  towns  near  the 
plantations.  Each  great  estate  carried  on  all  its 
own  work.  It  raised  its  own  food,  had  its  own 
tradesmen — carpenters,  blacksmiths,  mechanics — 
attached  to  each  great  house,  with  a  large  body 
of  clerks,  overseers,  superintendents,  and  other 
agents  who  carried  on  the  work  for  the  proprietor. 
Consequently,  even  where  there  were  town  settle- 
ments, these  consisted  only  of  a  few  houses  at 
some  crossroads,  with  possibly  a  church  and  a 
court-house,  used  for  meetings  of  those  men  who 
governed  the  affairs  of  the  colonies. 

The  way  of  life  in  the  northern  and  middle 
colonies  was  very  different.  The  farmers  owned 
smaller  plots  of  ground  than  the  planters,  and  at 
first  did  not  raise  crops  that  they  could  send  to 
England  or  to  foreign  lands.  Their  farms  were 


no         When  America  Was  New 

used  to  raise  food  for  themselves  and  their  house- 
hold, and  for  their  animals.  This  made  them  at 
first  poorer  than  the  planters,  and  they  had  to  be 
content  with  plain  homes,  poor  clothing,  and 
very  few  of  the  comforts  of  life. 

But  they  raised  the  raw  materials  they  needed, 
and  because  they  could  not  send  abroad  for 
goods,  they  learned  to  make  them.  Thus  it  was 
that  the  northern  people  slowly  changed,  as  they 
grew  in  numbers,  from  a  race  of  farmers,  to  a  race 
of  manufacturers,  who  could  make  out  of  the 
things  that  their  country  produced  useful  articles 
to  send  abroad,  or  even  to  exchange  with  the 
rich  planters.  This  made  work  in  the  north  for 
the  builders  of  ships,  the  sailors,  the  storekeepers, 
and  all  the  class  of  merchants  who  carried  on  the 
trade  in  the  colonies,  and  the  commerce  abroad. 
Around  the  harbors  these  men  built  their  homes, 
and  their  wharves.  Besides  the  busy  ports,  the 
building  of  vessels  had  brought  about  the  es- 
tablishment of  big  shipyards  and  near  these  were 
thriving  towns  where  the  men  connected  with 
this  great  industry  could  live,  not  too  far  away 
from  their  places  of  work. 

The  fisheries,  employing  large  fleets  of  fishing- 
boats,  also  brought  about  large  settlements  where 
fishing  was  the  chief  industry  and  the  prepara- 


New  World  Living  111 

tion  of  the  fish  for  export  was  carried  on  in  fac- 
tories. 

Further  from  the  coast,  towns  were  more  self- 
supporting  and  more  divided  into  petty  trades. 
The  earliest  buildings,  after  a  few  farmhouses, 
were  apt  to  be  the  church,  the  schoolhouse,  the 
blacksmith  shop,  and  the  village  store,  and  many 
of  the  New  England  settlements  even  to-day  con- 
tain little  else. 

Naturally  the  men  who  grew  up  in  these  New 
England  towns  were  less  dependent  upon  their 
neighbors  than  the  poorer  classes  of  the  South, 
but  they  were  also  less  acquainted  with  what 
went  on  in  the  world.  There  was  more  inter- 
course between  the  southern  colonies  and  the 
home  country.  The  great  planters  were  accus- 
tomed to  send  the  young  men  of  the  family  to 
England  or  Europe,  to  finish  their  education, 
which  kept  the  neighborhood  better  acquainted 
with  all  that  was  going  on  in  England  and  tended 
to  make  them  follow  the  English  fashions  and 
to  adopt  the  prejudices  of  the  Old  Country. 

The  New  Englander,  especially  if  not  dwelling 
in  a  coast  town,  was  more  narrow-minded  than 
the  Virginian,  but  he  was  apt  to  be  more  inde- 
pendent in  his  opinions  and  less  affected  by  the 
ideas  of  the  Old  World.  Of  course  this  does  not 


112         When  America  Was  New 

apply  to  the  men  of  either  section  who  lived  in  the 
larger  settlements  that  were  closely  connected 
with  the  mother  country  and  came  into  frequent 
contact  with  the  visitors  from  home.  But  even 
in  these  places  there  was  a  distinct  line  drawn 
between  the  English  and  the  colonials ;  and  the 
interests  of  the  officials  from  England,  the  officers 
of  the  British  army,  and  the  traveling  merchants, 
were  in  many  cases  directly  opposed  to  the  inter- 
ests of  the  colonials.  As  time  went  on,  these 
differences  of  opinion  became  greater  and  helped 
to  bring  about  the  separation  between  the  mother 
country  and  her  colonies. 

Next  to  shelter,  and  home-making,  and  even 
before  matters  of  politics,  comes  the  question  of 
food. 

Food  was  very  plentiful  in  the  colonies,  but  of 
course  differed  according  to  the  locality.  For 
the  first-comers  deer-flesh  was  abundant,  espe- 
cially in  Virginia,  where  the  deer  were  often 
killed  by  setting  rings  of  fire  around  large  tracts 
of  woods  to  destroy  all  the  wild  animals  within. 
Most  of  the  deer  were  killed,  not  for  food,  but 
for  the  hide,  buckskin  being  used  for  all  sorts  of 
clothing.  Turkeys  were  equally  abundant,  and 
frequent  mention  is  made  by  early  writers  of  the 
great  flocks  of  wild  pigeons  that  were  hours  in 


New  World  Living  113 

passing.  In  short,  the  woods  abounded  with 
every  sort  of  game,  and  many  sorts  now  very 
rare  were  then  looked  upon  as  pests  and 
had  to  be  killed  in  order  to  save  the  grain 
fields. 

To  raise  Indian  corn,  or  maize,  the  colonists 
had  learned  from  the  Indians ;  and  this  was  a 
plentiful  food,  wholesome  and  appetizing,  whether 
eaten  as  popcorn,  parched,  or  ground  into  meal 
for  bread- making. 

Sugar  was  rare,  except  that  made  from  the 
maple  sap,  of  which  all  were  very  fond  and  which 
was  used  for  every  sort  of  sweetening.  The  tap- 
ping of  maple- trees,  the  boiling  down  of  the 
syrup  in  big  kettles,  and  the  making  of  the  sugar, 
should  perhaps  be  included  in  the  amusements 
of  the  colonists,  as  many  neighbors  joined  in  the 
work  and  made  it  the  occasion  for  frolics  and 
fun-making. 

Quite  as  plentiful  as  the  products  of  the  fields 
and  woods  were  those  of  the  sea.  The  earliest 
attraction  that  brought  fleets  across  the  Atlantic 
was  the  great  fishery  Banks  of  the  northern  coast 
where  were  cod  and  other  food-fish  in  what 
seemed  an  endless  supply.  Captain  John  Smith 
was  one  of  the  earliest  who  had  the  wisdom  to 
see  that  the  great  catch  of  codfish  promised  more 


114         When  America  Was  New 

wealth  than  all  the  mines  of  gold  and  silver  of 
which  others  were  dreaming. 

Besides  the  cod,  there  were  mackerel,  herring, 
bass,  and  other  deep-sea  fish,  as  well  as  the  fresh- 
water fish,  the  shellfish  and  other  creatures  that 
crowded  the  rivers,  brooks,  and  creeks.  All 
were  plentiful,  big,  and  easy  to  catch.  It  is  hard 
for  us  to  believe  the  stories  of  the  giant  lobsters 
and  crabs  of  the  time,  for  it  is  said  that  in  New 
York  Bay  lobsters  were  caught  as  big  as  a  man. 
Oysters  in  the  same  locality  grew  to  a  foot  in 
length,  and  the  Virginia  oysters  were  quite  as 
large. 

We  read  similar  wonders  of  the  swarms  of 
fowl  in  the  air,  and,  indeed,  the  accounts  of  the 
colonial  abundance  of  food  read  like  fairy-tales. 
Imagine  what  it  must  have  been  to  a  poor  man, 
who  came  from  the  starving  lands  abroad  where 
death  was  the  penalty  if  he  dared  to  set  a  snare 
in  the  woods  to  catch  a  bird  or  a  hare,  to  find 
himself  in  a  land  where  what  he  had  been  used  to 
look  upon  as  the  luxuries  of  the  rich  were  so 
plentiful  that  not  only  could  every  one  fare  richly 
every  day,  but  all  that  could  be  taken  from  the 
vast  abundance  seemed  to  make  no  impression 
upon  it. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  men  who  grow  up 


New  World  Living  115 

amid  such  surroundings  believed  that  the  great 
continent  to  which  they  had  come  had  homes 
and  to  spare  for  all  the  world ;  it  is  no  wonder 
that  they  threw  wide  the  gates  and  begged  the 
poor  of  all  lands  to  join  them  in  this  region  of 
plenty.  But  the  Americans  have  ended  like  a 
great  crowd  of  reckless  boys,  who,  on  being  ad- 
mitted to  a  table  set  for  some  rich  feast,  have 
wasted  and  destroyed  the  food  that  should  have 
provided  for  them  and  their  successors;  they 
have  lived  recklessly  without  a  thought  of  pro- 
viding for  the  generations  that  are  to  come  after 
them. 

The  number  and  amount  of  the  dishes  served 
at  their  meals  seem  to  us  almost  incredible,  but 
their  large  appetites  were  no  doubt  due  to  the 
continual  life  in  the  open  air  and  exercise  of  a 
severe  kind  taken  every  day.  The  English  at 
this  time  seem  also  to  have  had  the  same  great 
capacity  for  eating  enormously  at  the  two  main 
meals,  which  were  usually  served  one  about 
noontime  and  the  other  very  late  in  the  after- 
noon. Even  for  breakfast,  such  solid  dishes  as 
legs  of  mutton  were  not  at  all  uncommon.  But 
the  ways  of  the  table  will  be  taken  up  in  a  later 
chapter. 

The  nature  of  the  lives  led  in  the  colonies  de- 


ii6       .  When  America  Was  New 

pended  much  upon  the  fact  that  all  the  settle- 
ments were  made  in  a  land  already  occupied  by 
native  races.  The  white  men  in  America  could 
not  live  as  they  had  done  in  the  Old  World,  for 
they  were  always  compelled  to  think  of  the  thou- 
sands of  Indians  who  looked  on  the  white  men 
as  invaders. 

In  speaking  of  the  American  Indians  we  must 
not  forget  that,  though  there  is  some  likeness 
among  them  all,  there  are  countless  differences, 
and  that  to-day  we  know  of  hundreds  of  tribes, 
and  even  of  a  great  number  of  different  Indian 
races.  Yet  the  same  word  is  so  used  for  them  all 
that  in  speaking  of  an  Indian  one  cannot  tell 
whether  an  Esquimaux  is  meant  or  a  Patagonian 
— the  Esquimaux  being  a  stout,  short  native 
living  amid  almost  perpetual  ice  at  the  North, 
while  the  Patagonian,  living  almost  at  the  other 
side  of  the  world,  is  tall,  spare,  and  differs  in 
all  his  ways  of  life. 

Our  Indians  differ  nearly  as  much  when  we 
compare  those  of  the  extreme  West  with  those 
of  the  great  central  plains,  or  either  of  these 
with  the  races  that  dwell  on  the  eastern  coast. 
The  Indians  are  said  by  a  recent  book  of  refer- 
ence to  differ  among  themselves  quite  as  much 


New  World  Living  117 

as  does  the  Caucasian  from  the  Jewish,  or  Semitic. 
Even  their  languages  do  not  seem  to  have  arisen 
from  a  common  tongue. 

The  Indians  with  whom  the  colonists  at  first 
had  to  do  were,  of  course,  those  of  the  eastern 
coasts,  and  of  these  there  were  two  main  branches, 
the  Algonquin  and  the  Iroquois  families. 

The  stories  of  the  earlier  explorers  all  agree 
in  describing  the  Indians  whom  they  first  met  as 
friendly  and  kindly  people,  living,  as  these  men 
described  it,  in  a  Golden  Age ;  and  this  seems  to 
have  been  true  as  to  nearly  all  of  them  along  the 
eastern  coast.  The  white  men  were  looked  upon 
with  wonder,  but  were  not  thought  of  as  enemies 
until  by  their  own  wrongdoing  they  had  taught 
the  Indians  they  were  not  to  be  trusted.  Even 
after  by  kidnapping,  by  robbery,  and  by  the 
murder  of  the  natives,  the  Indians  had  learned 
to  look  upon  white  men  as  enemies,  there  was  a 
long  period  during  which  the  fear  was  upon  the 
Indians'  side,  and  the  approach  of  the  white  men 
with  their  dreaded  weapons  would  send  the 
Indians  scurrying  into  the  woods.  During  these 
earlier  years  such  attacks  as  the  Indians  made 
were  timid  and  easily  repulsed.  Both  the 
Virginia  settlers  and  those  in  New  England  had 


1 18         When  America  Was  New 

no  trouble  in  keeping  the  Indians  in  subjection, 
for  they  were  greatly  impressed  by  the  fire-arms 
of  the  day,  poor  as  these  were. 

Where  the  Indians  were  kindly  treated,  their 
lands  fairly  paid  for,  and  the  treaties  made  with 
them  were  kept,  they  remained  on  good  terms 
with  the  settlers,  as  in  Maryland  and  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. But  the  American  Indian  was  not  a 
coward,  and  he  was  sharp  enough  to  learn  very 
early  that  in  the  woods  and  in  fighting  after  the 
Indian  manner,  he  had  little  to  dread  from  the 
white  man,  despite  his  gun,  his  armor,  and  his 
sword. 

Some  of  the  white  settlers,  against  the  judg- 
ment of  the  more  prudent  among  them,  were 
tempted  by  the  profit  to  be  made  from  the  trade 
to  supply  the  Indians  with  guns  and  gunpowder. 
Once  armed  in  the  same  way,  the  Indian,  aided 
by  his  practice  in  war,  by  his  knowledge  of 
woodcraft,  and  his  great  endurance,  became  a 
match  for  any  white  man  except  the  few  who 
had  learned  the  tricks  of  Indian  strategy  from 
the  red  men  themselves. 

The  Indian  soon  became  treacherous,  sly, 
cruel,  bloodthirsty,  and  unforgiving;  but  men 
are  coming  to  see  that  these  bad  qualities  were 
the  result  of  the  way  in  which  the  Indians  were 


New  World  Living  119 

treated  by  the  settlers.  They  were  treacherous 
only  after  they  found  that  the  white  men  had  no 
honor  in  keeping  their  word  ;  they  were  sly  be- 
cause they  were  righting  at  a  disadvantage  and 
against  those  whose  weapons  were  superior,  and 
who  knew  more  by  long  experience  about  how 
to  fight  in  large  bodies.  Besides,  the  Indian  ex- 
pected in  his  fighting  the  same  slyness  that  he 
showed.  It  was  their  way  of  making  war,  and 
was  by  all  Indians  considered  fair.  It  may  be 
said  also  that  their  cruelties  were  no  greater  than 
those  of  any  other  savage  people,  and  that  they 
held  themselves  ready  to  bear  the  same  tortures 
they  inflicted. 

That  there  was  no  greater  cruelty  in  the 
Indian  than  in  the  colonist  will  be  admitted  by 
all  who  have  read  the  history  of  Indian  wars  in 
America  and  know  of  what  cruelty  the  white 
settlers  were  capable  when  the  Indians  fell  into 
their  hands.  Besides,  we  must  not  forget  that 
with  the  Indian  the  fight  against  the  settlers  was 
a  fight  for  the  lives  of  himself  and  his  family. 
The  coming  of  the  white  man  would  bring  about 
the  destruction  of  the  forests  and  this  would 
make  it  impossible  for  the  Indian  hunter  to  live. 

From  the  Indians  the  colonists  learned  the 
whole  art  of  living  in  the  New  World.  If  it  had 


12O         When  America  Was  New 

not  been  for  their  help  the  early  settlers  could 
never  have  lived  beyond  a  few  months,  either  at 
Jamestown  or  at  Plymouth.  To  the  Indian  we 
owe  the  placing  of  our  best  roads,  which  follow 
the  Indian  trails ;  from  the  Indian  guides  was 
learned  the  best  way  of  getting  from  one  part  of 
the  country  to  another ;  the  methods  of  Indian 
hunters,  fishermen  and  trappers  were  copied  and 
seldom  improved. 

In  agriculture  the  whites  learned  from  the  In- 
dians the  burning  over  of  land,  the  use  of  fish 
for  enriching  it,  how  to  grow  corn,  beans,  pump- 
kins. And  to  the  Indian  we  owe  the  potato,  the 
Indian  corn,  and  the  tomato,  as  well  as  the  per- 
simmon and  the  peanut.  Other  foods  we  owe  to 
them  are  maple  sugar  and  syrup,  pemmican  (a 
mixture  of  meat  and  corn)  and  many  ways  of 
preserving  meat  and  vegetables.  There  is  a  long 
list  4  of  curative  herbs  which  the  white  doctors 
learned  from  the  Indian  men  and  women,  and 
there  are  many  articles  of  domestic  use,  such  as 
dyestuffs,  for  which  we  owe  thanks  to  the  red 
race. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  there  were  as  many  In- 
dians in  America  when  the  Europeans  came  as 
there  are  to-day  ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  many 
tribes  have  almost  disappeared  because  they 


New  World  Living  121 

would  not  change  their  ways,  or  were  killed  in 
wars  with  the  whites. 

The  Indians'  way  of  life,  while  very  different 
from  that  of  the  white  men,  was  by  no  means 
such  as  to  show  them  a  degraded  race.  They 
had  learned  to  make  use  very  ably  of  what  they 
needed  to  bring  them  the  comfort  they  desired. 
Their  houses  protected  them  from  the  weather ; 
they  were  skilful  enough  to  secure  a  plentiful 
supply  of  food,  not  only  by  hunting,  but  also  by 
raising  crops.  Their  dress  suited  the  conditions 
of  their  life,  whether  they  lived  so  far  north  as  to 
dress  mainly  in  skins,  of  in  milder  climates  used 
fabrics  woven  from  plant  fibres.  Their  wampum 
served  the  purposes  of  money  ;  they  had  made 
for  themselves  in  their  bows  and  stone  hatchets, 
and  bone-awls,  or  needles  ;  in  their  stone  pestles 
and  mortars ;  in  their  clay  pottery  and  their 
woven  baskets,  all  the  tools  and  utensils  necessary 
in  their  way  of  life.  They  could  make  fire  by 
friction,  twirling  a  sharpened  stick  against  an- 
other, and  their  methods  of  cookery  and  their 
medical  knowledge  were  not  greatly  inferior  to 
that  of  the  earliest  settlers. 

One  of  the  greatest  of  the  Indian  inventions 
was  the  canoe,  made  either  of  a  hollowed  log 
burned  out  by  fire,  or  of  birch  bark  stretched 


122         When  America  Was  New 

most  skilfully  over  hardwood  ribs  and  sewed  to- 
gether with  fibres  or  deer  sinews. 

The  most  important  thing  to  remember  about 
the  Indian  and  his  relations  to  the  white  settlers 
is  the  enormous  amount  of  land  that  was  neces- 
sary to  support  an  Indian  family,  compared  to 
the  small  farm  that  would  give  a  white  man  and 
his  family  enough  to  live  upon ;  for  from  this 
fact  it  came  about  that  although  before  many 
years,  the  Indians  were  few  as  compared  to  the 
white  men,  yet  the  clearing  of  the  land  and  the 
dwelling  of  the  white  settlers  along  the  coasts  and 
rivers  crowded  the  Indians  out  of  their  hunting- 
grounds  and  forced  them  either  to  fight  the  set- 
tlers or  to  move  into  regions  where  they  were 
driven  to  fight  with  other  Indians  for  the  rightto 
hunt  and  fish  and  make  camps. 

From  this  fact  came  those  long  years  of  In- 
dian wars  that  changed  the  whole  nature  of  the 
American  colonists  and  either  drove  the  Indians 
into  the  interior  or  made  them  mere  vagabonds 
and  hangers-on  about  the  white  settlements, 
drunken  and  worthless  survivors  of  tribes  once 
worthy  of  respect. 

As  to  the  Indians,  Reuben  G.  Thwaites  \  gives 
an  excellent  general  account  of  their  relations 

i  "  Stepping-Stones  of  American  History." 


New  World  Living  123 

with  the  white  settlers.  He  points  out  that  in 
the  southern  colonies  there  were  about  fifty  thou- 
sand, of  somewhat  mild  disposition  but  good 
fighters  when  roused.  These  Indians  learned 
many  of  the  white  men's  arts,  and  quickly  im- 
proved, so  that  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution 
they  were  excellent  farmers  and  prosperous. 

The  Indians  with  whom  the  northern  settlers 
had  to  deal  were  a  more  war-like  race,  hunters 
and  fishermen,  and  of  a  more  wandering  nature. 
One  group  of  tribes,  the  Iroquois,  was  the  most 
daring  and  most  independent  of  the  Indian  race. 
They  were  early  attacked  by  the  French  and 
therefore  came  to  be  more  friendly  toward  the 
English  than  the  other  Indian  tribes,  which  was  a 
great  advantage  to  the  American  colonists. 

Most  of  the  Indians  the  colonists  knew  lived 
not  far  from  the  coast,  where  fish  were  abundant. 
Just  back  of  these  there  was  a  tract  of  country 
where  were  few  Indians  except  for  small  villages 
far  separated  from  one  another.  The  Indians 
who  lived  further  west  seldom  came  far  enough 
east  to  come  into  conflict  with  the  colonists. 
Therefore  the  early  settlers  had  to  fight  against 
only  a  few  of  the  Indian  tribes. 

The  thing  that  brought  white  men  and  Indians 
into  conflict  was  the  struggle  for  the  fishing  and 


124         When  America  Was  New 

hunting  grounds,  and  in  this  continual  struggle 
there  was  no  way  of  making  a  lasting  peace  with 
the  Indians,  since  there  was  no  recognized  Indian 
government  that  could  control  the  warriors. 
They  acted  mainly  in  small  parties  and  could 
seldom  stand  against  the  settlers  when  united. 
This,  too,  tells  us  why  the  Indian  method  of 
fighting  was  made  up  of  small  raids  and  sudden 
attacks  followed  by  a  retreat  into  the  forests. 
The  traders  who  went  among  the  Indian  tribes 
were  often  a  bad  lot  of  men  who  cheated  and 
robbed  the  savages,  and  taught  them  to  drink,  and 
thus  made  them  enemies  to  all  the  whites. 

A  thing  that  made  trouble  was  the  very  differ- 
ent idea  about  the  owning  of  land  among  the  In- 
dians and  white  people.  The  white  man  be- 
lieved that  land  once  owned  was  his  forever ;  the 
Indian,  after  a  few  years  would  move  away  to  a 
new  region  and  naturally  expected  that  the  white 
men  who  took  up  his  lands  would  do  the  same. 
This  led  to  wars  that  in  the  end  meant  the  driv- 
ing out  of  the  weaker  party,  and  so  the  Indian 
had  to  suffer. 

The  same  historian  shows  us  how  fortunate 
it  was  that  the  English  met  so  bold  and  brave  a 
foe  instead  of  the  more  timid  and  yielding  race 
whom  the  Spanish  enslaved.  Thus  the  English 


New  World  Living  125 

were  left  to  do  their  own  work,  were  taught 
bravery  and  hardihood  in  warfare,  and  were  kept 
from  spreading  westward  so  fast  as  to  make  the 
colonies  weak. 

Yet  it  was  the  presence  of  the  Indians  that 
made  the  main  difference  in  the  lives  and  homes 
of  the  settlers  from  what  these  had  been  in  the 
old  country.  In  thinking  of  their  hardships  we 
must  remember  that  many  of  these  were  not  new. 
They  had  been  used  to  poorly  heated  houses, 
though  in  a  land 'where  winters  were  less  severe. 
So  far  as  food  was  concerned,  the  new  world 
brought  to  most  of  them  greater  plenty  than  they 
had  known.  Though  they  made  many  things  for 
themselves,  so  had  they  done  in  England  or  in 
Europe.  The  women  were  used  to  spinning  and 
weaving,  to  sewing  and  mending ;  to  cooking  in 
pots,  kettles,  and  brick  ovens ;  to  making  their 
own  bread,  to  the  same  housewifely  work  they 
did  in  America.  But  the  Indians  taught  the 
colonials,  both  men  and  women,  to  be  watchful, 
brave,  and  ready  to  fight  for  their  lives.  The 
women  learned  to  shoot  their  husbands'  guns,  to 
melt  lead,  and  to  mould  bullets,  to  be  on  their 
guard  against  attack  when  the  fathers  and  sons 
were  away,  to  nurse  the  wounded  in  times  of  war- 
fare. 


126         When  America  Was  New 

Becoming  brave  and  self-reliant,  the  women  of 
the  colonies  thought  little  of  going  alone  on 
horseback  miles  from  home,  and  had  nothing  to 
fear  except  in  the  Indian  country.  They  became 
their  husbands'  helpers  and  companions  in  all 
kinds  of  work,  and  some  learned  to  handle  the 
axe,  to  drive  oxen,  to  plow,  and  to  be  good  at  all 
sorts  of  farm-work. 

Indoors,  besides  much  else,  they  provided  the 
clothing  for  all,  from  the  raw  material  to  the 
finished  garments. 

An  important  crop  that  was  grown  in  New 
England  was  flax,  and  a  large  part  of  the  labor 
of  the  women  was  the  preparation  of  this  flax 
and  the  spinning  of  it  into  thread,  the  weaving  of 
the  thread  into  cloth,  and  its  making  into  gar- 
ments. A  bride's  outfit  was  hardly  complete 
without  the  spinning-wheel ;  and  girls  were  proud 
to  provide  themselves  with  an  ample  stock  of 
linen  with  which  to  begin  housekeeping,  and 
there  was  much  rivalry  among  the  housewives  in 
spinning  and  weaving,  much  pride  in  their  skill. 

Besides  the  making  of  thread  and  cloth,  the 
women  were  famous  cooks,  kept  up  their  gar- 
dens, and,  despite  their  housework,  could  spend 
much  time  in  visiting,  even  though  they  were 
often  busy  knitting,  spinning,  or  doing  other 


New  World  Living  127 

small  pieces  of  work,  while  they  gossiped  with  a 
neighbor. 

In  order  to  provide  themselves  with  that  great 
household  necessity,  enough  soap,  the  colonists 
as  soon  as  they  had  domestic  animals,  used  to 
save  all  the  fatty  portions,  boil  them  down  in 
great  kettles,  and  then  add  lye  made  by  letting 
water  run  through  a  barrel  or  trough  (often 
home-made)  over  a  great  quantity  of  wood  ashes 
saved  from  their  big  fires.  The  strength  of  the 
lye  was  tested  by  seeing  how  high  it  would  float 
an  egg  or  a  potato.  When  the  lye  and  soap- 
grease  were  boiled  down  together,  they  turned 
into  soft-soap,  which  was  stored  in  barrels  for 
use.  For  toilet  soap  they  sometimes  used  the 
bayberry  wax,  which  made  a  hard  soap,  but  this 
was  a  luxury,  and  not  common. 

It  was  the  custom  in  many  of  the  colonies  not 
to  have  more  than  one  wash-day  a  month,  which 
could  be  done  partly  because  most  households 
had  an  ample  supply  of  linen,  and  because  in 
poorer  households  few  washable  clothes  were 
worn. 

Children  also  had  their  work  to  do  in  the 
household,  and  were  strictly  trained.  They 
were  taught  to  show  great  respect  for  their  elders, 
saluting  them  as  they  passed,  sometimes  standing 


128         When  America  Was  New 

up  at  table  while  their  elders  ate,  and  were 
expected  to  give  a  helping  hand  upon  the  farms 
and  in  the  house.  In  this  way  they  learned  to 
do  all  sorts  of  work,  and  as  they  grew  up  became 
fitted  to  take  their  parents'  place  in  the  world. 
In  fact,  the  colonial  childhood  soon  came  to  an 
end.  Both  boys  and  girls  grew  up  quickly,  took 
part  in  the  farm  or  housework  as  soon  as  their 
strength  would  let  them,  and  were  spared  for 
the  school  only  in  the  winter  months  when  the 
farm  work  ceased,  and  there  was  less  to  do  at 
home. 

The  play-days  of  the  youngest  were  spent  in 
games  that  were  like  what  they  saw  around  them. 
The  boys  pretended  to  be  Indians,  or  hunters,  or 
fishermen;  made  bows  and  arrows  or  wooden 
guns,  willow  whistles,  harnessed  their  dogs  to 
little  home-made  carts,  and  so  on.  The  girls, 
likewise,  unable  to  buy  dolls,  made  them  out  of 
corn  husks,  sticks,  flowers  and  leaves  ;  and  played 
house  in  the  fence  corners  or  near  the  wood-piles. 
In  short,  they  made  their  own  playthings  or 
joined  in  the  games  that,  like  tag,  need  nothing 
but  children  themselves. 

But  at  an  early  age,  both  girls  and  boys  began 
to  learn  every  kind  of  work — the  boys  to  farm, 
to  use  the  axe,  to  drive,  the  girls  to  cook,  to  spin, 


New  World  Living  129 

to  weave,  to  do  housework ;  and  to  this  early 
beginning  the  colonists  owed  their  skill  in  all 
callings. 

It  was  a  time  when  big  families  were  many, 
and  a  time  when  the  larger  a  family  became,  the 
stronger  was  the  household,  and  the  better  the 
chandes  of  all  for  getting  on  in  the  world,  since 
work  was  plenty,  and  brought  quick  returns. 


CHAPTER  VI 
MAKING  THE  HOMESTEAD 

A  WELL  known  writer  for  the  young  who 
died  in  1901  was  the  Reverend  Elijah 
Kellogg.  He  wrote  many  stories,  par- 
ticularly for  boys,  a  number  of  them  specially 
successful  in  giving  true  pictures  of  early  life  in 
America ;  but  perhaps  the  most  valuable  book 
that  he  ever  wrote  is  called  "  Good  Old  Times ; 
or,  Grandfather's  Struggles  for  a  Homestead." 
This  book  is  hardly  a  made-up  story.  The  facts 
in  it  are  taken  partly  from  an  old  diary  and  partly 
from  the  lips  of  a  woman  who  was  the  wife  of 
the  first  settler — the  "  grandfather  "  named  in  the 
title — and  who  lived  to  an  old  age. 

While  histories  tell  us  what  is  done  by  a  great 
number  of  people,  it  is  only  in  diaries,  letters  or 
in  such  stories  as  this  one  of  Kellogg's  that  we 
find  a  true  picture  of  the  life  of  a  single  family 
and  of  their  making  of  a  home  in  the  wilderness. 
Strangely  enough,  too,  after  we  Jiave  learned  the 
life  of  one  pioneer  family  we  find  ourselves  better 
acquainted  with  the  life  of  the  time  than  we  can 
130 


Making  the  Homestead  131 

be  if  we  have  simply  read  general  statements 
about  a  whole  region  or  a  whole  race.  It  is  as 
if  we  ourselves  had  gone  with  this  first  settler 
into  the  woods  and,  as  a  member  of  his  family, 
had  fought  against  the  forests,  against  wild 
animals,  against  the  Indians,  and  had  step  by 
step  built  up  the  home  where  our  descendants 
were  to  dwell  for  generations  afterward. 

The  settler  whose  story  is  told  was  a  Scotch- 
man, but  his  home  in  the  old  country  was  in 
Ireland.  He  was  one  of  those  sent  by  the 
English  into  Ireland  after  they  had  cleared  one 
part  of  the  Irish  Catholics  who  had  fought  against 
the  English  Crown. 

This  man's  name,  as  given  in  the  book,  is 
real ;  it  was  Hugh  McLennan.  The  time  treated 
of  was  about  1730,  but  the  conditions  that  he 
found  in  America,  owing  to  the  fact  that  he  made 
for  himself  a  home  in  the  unbroken  forest,  were 
much  the  same  as  those  that  surrounded  the 
earliest  settlers  who  moved  inland  from  the  coast. 

It  was  a  time  when  the  making  of  a  living  in 
Ireland  was  almost  an  impossibility,  and  this 
settler  was  really  driven  to  America  in  order  to 
find  bread  for  his  family  and  work  for  himself. 
His  voyage  across  the  ocean  is  described,  par- 
ticularly his  cleverness  in  helping  the  captain  to 


132         When  America  Was  New 

mend  a  broken  rudder  caused  by  stormy 
weather  ;  for  he  was  a  man  who  had  been  trained 
in  the  use  of  tools,  and  it  was  to  this  largely  that 
he  owed  his  prosperity  in  America. 

He  brought  with  him  from  the  Old  Country 
almost  nothing — a  little  clothing,  his  wife's  spin- 
ning-wheel, and  a  few  articles  of  real  necessity. 
When  the  family  landed,  they  went  to  the 
northern  colonies  and  settled  there,  because  they 
were  told  that  the  Irish  were  not  then  welcome 
in  Massachusetts. 

For  some  time  they  lived  in  Portland,  then  a 
small  town,  the  people  of  which  made  their 
living  in  connection  with  ship-building  and  the 
fisheries. 

But  the  thing  that  had  brought  them  to 
America  was  the  hope  of  owning  land.  At 
home,  not  only  was  the  land  held  at  high  prices, 
but,  owing  to  the  uncertainty  of  crops,  even  the 
owners  of  small  farms  could  hardly  do  more  than 
live  from  hand  to  mouth,  without  hope  of  laying 
up  anything  to  provide  for  their  children. 

After  staying  for  a  while  in  Portland  with  a 
relative  almost  as  poor  as  themselves,  who,  how- 
ever, gave  them  house-room,  McLennan  heard 
that  there  were  certain  large  tracts  of  land  about 
ten  miles  from  the  coast,  in  the  middle  of  an  al- 


Making  the  Homestead  133 

most  unbroken  forest,  that  had  been  given  by  the 
government  to  soldiers  who  had  served  in  the 
Indian  wars.  Many  of  these  soldiers  did  not 
care  to  use  the  land  themselves,  and  were  only 
too  glad  to  sell  it  at  a  small  price. 

At  first,  the  idea  of  taking  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren so  far  from  the  settlement  and  exposing 
them  to  the  dangers  of  Indian  attacks  and  the 
hardships  of  life  in  the  wilderness,  made  McLen- 
nan hesitate  to  buy  a  tract  from  those  offered. 
But  he  brooded  upon  the  project  until  his  wife 
learned  why  he  was  hesitating,  and  bravely  in- 
sisted that  they  had  come  to  America  for  no 
other  reason  than  to  build  up  a  home  for  them- 
selves, and  told  him  that  it  was  better  to  risk  any 
danger  than  to  fail  in  the  very  object  that  had 
brought  them  across  the  sea. 

Thus  encouraged,  the  settler  put  a  bag  of  pro- 
visions upon  his  back,  and  going  by  the  rough 
paths  that  had  been  cleared  through  the  woods 
by  the  lumber  workers,  made  a  careful  examina- 
tion of  the  sections  that  were  for  sale.  He  chose, 
finally,  a  thickly-wooded  section  in  which  there 
were  plenty  of  streams,  and  in  a  region  where 
there  had  been  a  number  of  roads  or  rough 
openings  cut  into  the  forest  for  the  sake  of  drag- 
ging out  lumber. 


134         When  America  Was  New 

For  the  tract  thus  picked  out  he  paid  the  last 
money  he  had  in  the  world,  and  leaving  his  wife 
still  in  the  town,  where  she  supported  herself  and 
her  children  by  spinning  and  by  such  odd  work 
as  she  could  get  in  helping  other  housewives,  he 
undertook  to  make  for  them  such  a  rough  shelter 
as  would  serve  until  he  could  build  better. 

Fortunately,  he  found  a  tumbled  down  shanty 
that  had  been  used  by  a  party  of  woodchoppers 
many  years  before,  but  it  had  been  abandoned  so 
long  that  young  trees  had  sprung  up  inside  the 
rough  enclosure  of  logs.  Using  his  snow-shoes 
as  shovels,  he  cleared  the  old  camp  of  snow,  and 
by  a  number  of  days'  hard  work,  mended  and 
built  up  the  rough  log  walls  and  covered  them 
with  a  brush  roof,  leaving  a  hole  in  the  middle 
for  the  smoke  to  escape. 

As  soon  as  the  hut  thus  prepared  was  made 
into  the  roughest  sort  of  shelter,  he  returned  to 
town  and  brought  his  wife  and  children  to  their 
new  home.  It  was  in  the  latter  part  of  March 
that  the  family  reached  the  camp  in  the  woods, 
and  they  found  that  a  heavy  fall  of  snow  had 
broken  down  the  brush  roof  and  undone  a  large 
part  of  the  work  that  had  made  it  a  shelter. 

The  wife  and  children  were  placed  on  an  old 
quilt  laid  in  the  shelter  of  the  roots  of  a  great 


Making  the  Homestead  135 

tree  that  had  been  upturned  by  a  storm,  and  a 
fire  was  built  to  keep  them  from  freezing.  The 
wife  and  children,  we  are  told,  were  all  barefoot. 

A  few  hours'  work,  however,  made  the  camp 
once  more  habitable,  and  it  at  least  served  to 
shelter  them  from  the  winds,  and  by  the  aid  of 
great  fires  they  were  able  to  keep  warm. 

They  began  life  with  nothing  more  than  a 
little  store  of  food  they  had  brought  from  town, 
a  horse  and  a  cow,  a  few  quilts  and  blankets,  the 
clothes  upon  their  backs,  and  a  little  bedding. 
The  wool  and  flax-wheels  with  which  the  wife 
was  to  help  earn  the  family  living  could  not  be 
used  in  this  little  hut,  and  a  few  tools  the  father 
of  the  family  had  bought  while  working  as  a  ship- 
carpenter,  were  their  only  means  of  earning 
money.  The  most  important  of  these  was,  of 
course,  the  axe,  and  it  is  interesting  to  learn  that 
even  at  that  time  the  shape  of  the  American  axe 
differed  from  one  which  was  used  in  the  Old 
Country.  The  American  axe,  being  narrower 
and  heavier,  was  better  fitted  to  its  work  of  cut- 
ting great  trees  than  the  broader,  short-handled 
axe  mainly  used  in  the  old  countries  for  chopping 
and  trimming  smaller  trees  of  the  newer  forests. 
It  had  taken  McLennan  some  months  to  learn 
the  use  of  the  long-handled  American  axe,  but 


136         When  America  Was  New 

being  naturally  handy  in  using  tools  he  soon  be- 
came as  expert  as  any  of  the  American  lumber- 
men. 

During  the  early  spring  months  the  family 
lived  on  the  provisions  they  had  brought  from 
town,  helped  out  by  the  cow's  milk,  which,  in- 
deed, was  the  main  support  of  the  younger  chil- 
dren, and  by  animal  food  for  which  they  traded 
with  the  Indians,  giving  the  squaws  thread  and  a 
few  needles  in  exchange  for  game  that  the  In- 
dians shot  in  the  woods. 

They  had  no  dishes,  but  ate  from  broad  chips 
of  wood  ;  they  had  no  earthenware,  and  the  only 
drinking  vessel  in  the  house  was  a  single  pewter 
porringer,  or  shallow  cup  with  a  handle ;  their 
only  light  was  given  by  the  great  fire  on  the 
hearth,  or  pine  splinters  or  knots  which  they  cut 
in  the  woods ;  for  drink,  they  had  the  spring 
water  and  the  maple  sap,  and  they  slept  all  in 
one  room  upon  rough  beds  of  boughs,  covered 
with  blankets. 

The  first  few  months  were  given  to  clearing  the 
land  in  order  that  they  might  plant  seed.  The 
trees  were  chopped  down  and  left  in  a  great 
tangle  as  they  lell.  When  by  weeks  of  chopping 
a  wide  place  had  thus  been  made  ready,  the 
whole  family  carried  from  their  fire  flaming 


Making  the  Homestead  137 

torches  of  pine  wood,  and  set  fire  to  it.  This 
was  the  only  means  they  had  of  getting  rid  of 
the  trees,  and,  besides,  was  a  most  excellent  way 
of  preparing  the  soil  for  planting. 

As  soon  as  the  fire  was  out,  and  while  the 
ashes  were  yet  warm  and  the  soil  softened  by  the 
heat,  they  planted  the  seeds  which  they  had 
brought  from  town.  While  the  "  burn  "  was  be- 
ing made,  of  course  all  the  animals  of  the  forest 
were  driven  out  of  the  tract  burned  over,  and  the 
family  watching  saw  a  multitude  of  raccoons, 
woodchucks,  rabbits,  skunks,  partridges,  foxes 
and  field-mice  "  all  running  for  dear  life  to  gain 
the  shelter  of  the  forest."  There  also  darted  out 
of  the  burned  land  a  great  gray  wolf,  and  this 
the  settler  shot,  for  the  horse  and  cow  were  often 
in  great  danger  from  these  animals  which  were 
still  common  in  the  unsettled  parts  of  Maine. 

Once  the  land  was  cleared,  they  planted  corn, 
pumpkins,  peas,  and  a  few  potatoes,  and  other 
vegetables.  These,  in  the  new  soil  made  rich  by 
the  wood  ashes  and  protected  by  the  heavy  coat- 
ing they  made,  sprouted  quickly,  and  before  long 
they  were  sure  of  a  good  harvest.  In  addition  to 
what  they  thus  raised  they  sometimes  got  meat 
and  corn  from  the  Indians  in  exchange  for  milk 
or  for  maple  sugar.  Raccoons,  partridges,  and 


138         When  America  Was  New 

porcupines,  were  now  and  then  shot  by  the  set- 
tler who  always  worked  with  his  gun  beside  him 
while  in  the  woods,  and  they  began  to  live  better. 

The  comforts  of  their  home  were  increased  by 
some  bits  of  rough  furniture  made  by  the  settler 
upon  the  stormy  days  when  he  could  not  work 
in  the  woods.  He  could  not  saw  timber  for  him- 
self nor  afford  the  time  and  trouble  necessary  to 
go  to  town  for  sawn  boards,  but  by  means  of  his 
axe  and  wedges  he  split  up  logs  and  then  out  of 
'the  slabs  made  rude  stools  by  driving  stakes  into 
the  holes  bored  by  an  auger. 

By  the  use  of  the  broad-axe  and  the  adze  (a 
tool  like  an  axe  except  that  it  has  a  slightly  bent 
blade  set  on  the  handle  crosswise,  in  the  same 
way  that  a  hoe-blade  is  set),  Hugh  could  do 
very  neat  carpenter-work.  By  means  of  the  adze 
it  was  possible  to  smooth  or  to  hew  the  surface 
of  the  split  slabs  and  thus  to  make  rough  boards 
out  of  which  to  build  walls,  flooring,  and  furni- 
ture. 

One  of  the  most  useful  pieces  of  furniture  in 
these  rough  huts  was  the  high-back  settle. 
When  a  fire  was  built  on  the  hearth,  it  sent  the 
hot  air  roaring  up  through  the  chimney  and 
caused  the  cold  air  to  leak  in  through  the 
crevices  left  between  the  logs.  Thus,  when  sit- 


Making  the  Homestead  139 

ting  by  the  fire,  though  warm  in  front,  one  might 
be  chilled  by  the  drafts  that  came  against  the 
back ;  and  the  high  settle  not  only  protected 
from  these  drafts,  but  also  tended  to  keep  the 
heat  from  being  wasted  in  the  big  room. 
McLennan  also  at  a  later  time  made  bedsteads 
for  the  family,  rough  frames  upon  which  to  put 
their  mattresses  of  rough  ticks  stufted  with  beech 
leaves,  and  hewed  out  trenches  or  wooden  dishes 
to  hold  their  food.  In  fact,  there  were  very  few 
things  that  could  not  be  made  by  the  clever 
choppers  of  those  days. 

Besides  attending  to  the  spinning,  which 
brought  them  food  when  the  thread  was  ex- 
changed for  meat  with  the  Indians  or  when  it 
was  sold  in  town,  Hugh's  wife,  Elizabeth,  not 
only  took  care  of  her  household,  but  also  taught 
herself  to  shoot  almost  as  well  as  her  husband. 

There  were  some  cleared  patches  of  land,  the 
result  of  forest  fires,  where  the  soil  had  become 
dry  and  sandy,  and  in  these  berries  grew  in 
abundance.  To  these  patches  there  often  came 
great  flocks  of  wild  pigeons.  These  birds  were 
so  numerous  that,  as  Edward  Eggleston  tells  us, 
they  were  often  whole  days  in  passing,  and 
almost  darkened  the  sky  by  their  numbers.  To 
shoot  these  and  other  small  game  was  a  great 


140         When  America  Was  New 

help  in  providing  food  for  the  family,  and  during 
her  husband's  absence  Elizabeth  and  the  eldest 
boy  often  went  hunting.  She  also  when  in  town 
bought  a  pig  that  thrived  and  fattened  upon  the 
beech-nuts  and  acorns  in  the  woods;  and  this 
added  to  the  family  stock  of  food,  when  made 
into  pork,  without  adding  to  their  expenses. 

Not  very  long  afterward  the  family,  seeing 
that  there  was  plenty  of  wild  hay  to  be  cut  in  the 
woods,  secured  half  a  dozen  sheep,  and  thus 
gradually  they  were  becoming  self-supporting, 
owing  to  the  products  of  their  fields  and  the  ani- 
mals gained  by  barter  or  the  money  earned  by 
lumber. 

To  save  the  need  for  going  to  the  mill,  Hugh 
hollowed  out  a  great  log  in  the  shape  of  a  mortar, 
and  cutting  a  heavy  log,  tied  a  rope  to  it,  fasten- 
ing the  rope  to  a  long  limb  above  so  that  the  log 
hung  just  over  the  opening  in  the  mortar.  Put- 
ting grain  into  the  mortar  and  pulling  upon  the 
rope  so  as  to  make  the  log  pound  it,  they  were 
able  to  grind  up  corn  into  meal  from  which  they 
could  make  bread.  This  form  of  corn-mill  was 
often  used  in  the  early  days.  The  brooks  fur- 
nished them  with  a  few  fish,  and  this,  too,  helped 
to  vary  their  diet. 

In  every  way  that  was  possible  they  lived  upon 


Making  the  Homestead  141 

what  the  land  furnished  them,  and  saved  all  the 
money  that  came  to  them  for  the  purpose  of 
buying  a  yoke  of  oxen,  without  which  it  was  im- 
possible to  move  the  great  logs  needed  to  build 
themselves  a  better  house.  The  oxen  were 
needed  also  to  get  out  of  the  woods  the  big  tree- 
trunks  which  had  been  marked  as  fit  for  masts 
and  ship-timber  for  the  royal  navies. 

As  already  explained,  these  bigger  trees — all 
that  were  over  three  feet  through — had  been 
marked  and  reserved,  the  colonists  being  for- 
bidden to  cut  them  for  their  own  use.  But 
there  was  money  to  be  made  out  of  these  trees, 
nevertheless,  for  the  colonists  could  cut  them 
down,  drag  them  out  of  the  woods,  and  be  well 
paid  for  their  trouble. 

As  soon  as  they  were  able  to  buy  the  oxen, 
Hugh  decided  to  build  himself  a  decent  dwelling. 
The  old  one  had  walls  only  three  logs  high  and 
was  too  low  for  the  family  to  stand  upright  ex- 
cept near  the  middle  of  their  one  room.  By  aid 
of  the  oxen,  great  logs  were  cut,  dragged  to  a  fit 
spot,  and  then  hewed  carefully  into  square  tim- 
bers. These  were  fitted  closely  together,  jointed 
at  the  corners,  and  a  big,  weather-tight  and 
strong  house  was  soon  built.  Instead  of  a  hard 
dirt  floor,  boards  were  hewed  out,  laid  smoothly, 


142         When  America  Was  New 

and  tightly  joined.  There  were  windows  with 
strong  shutters  for  warmth  and  security,  oiled 
paper  instead  of  glass  to  let  in  light,  and  there 
was  a  heavy  door  ordinarily  fastened  inside  by  a 
long  wooden  latch  to  which  a  string  was  attached, 
going  through  the  hole  in  the  door  and  hanging 
outside.  By  pulling  this  string  the  latch  could 
be  raised,  and  thus  one  could  easily  open  the 
door  when  "  the  latch-string  was  out," — a  phrase 
we  still  hear.  But  upon  pulling  the  string  inside, 
there  was  no  way  of  reaching  the  latch.  To 
fasten  the  door  more  securely,  arrangement  was 
made  for  putting  two  heavy  bars  across  it  on  the 
inside.  These  once  in  place,  the  heavy  door 
would  resist  even  the  attacks  of  the  Indians  so 
long  as  the  house  was  not  set  on  fire. 

In  the  old  camp-dwelling  the  housewife  had  to 
cook  either  upon  flat  stones  laid  in  the  ashes  or 
in  the  iron  pot  hung  over  the  fire,  gypsy-fashion. 
In  order  to  bake,  it  was  then  necessary  to  upturn 
the  iron  pot  and  to  heap  embers  upon  it  so  as  to 
make  it  into  a  sort  of  an  oven.  In  the  new 
house  there  was  a  well-built  stone  hearth  with  a 
fireplace  and  oven,  of  stones  neatly  laid  in 
mortar,  and  a  chimney  instead  of  a  mere  hole  in 
the  roof;  but  the  chimney,  for  lack  of  bricks, 
was  built  up  of  crossed  sticks  thickly  coated 


EARLY    HOUSEHOLD    UTENSILS    AND    FURNITURE. 


Making  the  Homestead  143 

with  clay  inside  and  out  to  keep  them  from 
burning. 

The  roof  was  made  of  hemlock  bark  cut  into 
slabs  and  laid  shingle-fashion.  In  winter,  by 
piling  brush  against  the  house-walls  and  packing 
snow  close  around  it,  it  became  a  very  warm 
dwelling,  since  snow  keeps  the  heat  in  and  the 
cold  out. 

One  great  advantage  of  this  larger  house  was 
the  fact  that  it  gave  the  housewife,  Elizabeth, 
room  to  use  her  spinning-wheels  and  to  set  up 
a  loom,  so  that  she  could  make  clothes  out  of 
threads  that  she  had  spun  upon  her  wheels. 
Such  home-spun  and  home-woven  cloths  were 
of  the  soundest  quality  and  would  last  for  genera- 
tions. In  fact,  many  pieces  of  such  household 
linen  still  exist,  being  kept  as  heirlooms. 

There  was  a  second  story  to  the  new  house, 
and  this  was  reached  by  a  sloping  log  in  which 
steps  were  made  by  cutting  notches. 

After  about  three  years  of  this  life  in. the 
wilderness,  Hugh  McLennan  and  his  family  had 
become  fairly  prosperous.  They  owned  a  yoke 
or  two  of  oxen,  chickens,  hogs,  sheep,  two  cows 
and  a  heifer.  They  had  bought  pewter  plates  to 
replace  the  chips  from  which  they  had  at  first 
eaten ;  they  had  iron  spoons,  knives  and  forks, 


144         When  America  Was  New 

and  could  even  drink  coffee  once  a  week  as  a 
great  luxury.  The  children  had  learned  to  be 
of  great  use,  indoors  and  out,  and  the  eldest, 
particularly,  had  become  a  trained  woodsman. 

This  boy,  now  about  eleven,  had  from  the 
beginning  made  friends  with  the  younger  Indians 
who  lived  in  a  summer  camp  not  far  away  to 
which  they  came  for  the  sake  of  raising  corn 
and  fishing ;  and  the  white  boy  was  always  wel- 
come as  a  playfellow  among  the  young  Indians. 
From  them  he  learned  the  secrets  of  the  woods- 
life  ;  he  learned  to  shoot  with  bow  and  arrow,  to 
track  animals,  to  make  his  way  noiselessly 
through  the  woods,  and,  in  short,  became  as 
skilful  in  woodcraft  as  the  redmen  themselves. 

Among  the  outlying  settlements  the  same 
mingling  of  the  white  and  Indian  boys  occurred 
in  thousands  of  cases,  and  this  had  very  great  re- 
sults in  later  years  when  these  boys  grew  up  and 
were  engaged  in  wars  against  Indians,  or,  still 
later,  had  to  fight  in  the  wilderness  against  the 
royal  troops.  It  brought  about  an  entirely  new 
method  of  warfare,  based  upon  what  the  Indians 
had  found  to  be  the  best  way  of  fighting  in  the 
wilderness. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  further  the  fortunes 
of  this  particular  family  at  this  time,  though  the 


Making  the  Homestead  145 

same  book  upon  which  the  foregoing  account  is 
based  contains  a  full  story  of  the  fortunes  of  such 
settlers  when  there  came  to  be  wars  with  the 
Indians  and  also  of  their  subsequent  life  as  the 
community  about  them  grew  and  became  civi- 
lized. What  these  people  did  in  the  woods  of 
Maine, — the  story  of  their  fight  for  a  living, 
would  need  but  little  change  to  apply  to  the  life 
of  almost  any  of  the  .families  who  settled  those 
parts  of  New  England  that  lay  somewhat  back 
from  the  coast.  As  soon  as  they  made  a  clear- 
ing, it  became  a  farm,  and  the  family  became 
farmer  folk. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  the  life  of 
the  settlers  and  colonists,  their  houses,  and  their 
farms,  or  lands,  differed  according  to  the  work 
that  they  found  to  be  done — that  is,  whether  they 
became  sailors  and  builders  of  ships,  farmers  and 
raisers  of  crops,  lumbermen  and  dwellers  in  the 
woods,  or  carried  on  the  transporting  of  goods  to 
and  from  the  interior  upon  the  waterways  or  by 
the  use  of  pack-animals.  But,  in  general,  their 
homes  were  much  like  that  of  Hugh  McLennan 
and  his  family,  and  they  made  home  comforts 
for  themselves  by  the  same  clever  use  of  the  ma- 
terials furnished  by  the  wilderness,  relying  only 
upon  their  own  brains,  their  strong  muscles,  and 


146         When  America  Was  New 

the  few  necessary  tools  brought  from  the  Old 
Country. 

In  the  southern  colonies  a  man  such  as  this 
settler  would  have  had  a  very  different  career. 
With  the  same  success,  he  would  become  a 
planter  as  the  other  became  a  farmer.  He  would 
have  come,  probably,  as  a  young  man,  either 
kidnapped  by  men  who  were  always  on  the  look- 
out to  earn  sums  of  money  given  them  for  send- 
ing apprentices  to  the  colonies,  or  if  needy  he 
might  have  agreed  to  come  and  to  work  for  a 
number  of  years  in  order  to  repay  the  cost  of  his 
passage. 

Arriving  in  America,  let  us  say  in  the  Virginia 
Colony,  he  would  have  found  employment, 
probably,  upon  one  of  the  great  plantations.  If 
he  had  been  of  the  same  worthy  stock  as  McLen- 
nan, industry,  good  conduct,  and  economy, 
would  in  a  few  years  make  him  his  own  master, 
and  then  he  would  secure  a  place  as  agent,  over- 
seer, or  clerk,  and  be  able  to  lay  up  a  little 
money,  and  become  a  land-owner  for  himself. 
The  chances  are  that  his  children  would  rise 
higher  than  he  had  done ;  they  might  even  be 
sent  home  to  be  educated,  and  if  they  returned 
to  the  colonies,  beco$ne  fairly  entitled  to  rank 
with  the  best  people  in  Virginia. 


Making  the  Homestead  147 

Of  course,  in  both  cases  we  must  not  forget 
that  there  were  men  of  a  different  stamp  from 
these  industrious,  useful  workers,  and  many  of 
them  found  anything  but  prosperity  in  the  new 
land.  In  the  northern  colonies  it  was  very  easy 
for  such  a  man  to  become  an  idler,  relying  per- 
haps upon  a  little  hunting  and  fishing  for  winning 
his  daily  bread  and  never  advancing  beyond  the 
capacity  to  provide  a  bare  shelter  and  living  for 
himself  and  his  family.  Rum  from  the  West 
Indies  was  plenty  in  those  days,  and  drinking 
was  almost  universal ;  and  this  certainly  tended 
to  keep  those  who  had  no  ambition  from 
rising  in  the  world,  whether  they  lived  in  the 
mild  climate  of  Virginia  or  the  severer  climate  of 
New  England. 

In  the  South  the  same  easy-going  type  of  man 
would  be  entirely  satisfied  if  he  could  hold  an  in- 
ferior position  in  the  service  of  some  merchant 
or  planter,  and  he  would  leave  his  children  with 
a  start  in  the  world  little  better  than  his  own. 

These  two  were  the  extreme  types,  and  the 
average  of  the  people  were  perhaps  nearer  to  the 
better  than  to  the  worst  of  them.  Coming  from 
the  Old  World  where  they  had  little  chance  to 
better  themselves,  and  finding  a  quick  reward  for 
hard  work  and  saving  in  America,  most  of  the 


148         When  America  Was  New 

colonists  were  able  to  see  their  children  far  better 
provided  for  than  themselves.  Even  those  who 
began  only  as  hunters  in  the  woods  or  fishermen 
on  the  sea,  and  along  the  lakes  and  the  rivers, 
often  secured  in  these  callings  enough  to  marry, 
settle  down,  and  live  a  less  wandering  life.  The 
woods  or  the  sea  were  always  near  enough  for 
the  planters  and  farmers  to  find  use  for  gun  and 
rod. 

When  the  colonists  traveled  in  the  thicker  for- 
ests, of  course  there  was  no  way  of  going  among 
the  underbrush  except  as  campers  to-day  go — 
on  foot,  or  by  means  of  canoes  that  can  be  lifted 
out  of  the  rivers  and  carried,  at  "  portages,"  from 
one  stream  to  another. 

When  the  woodland  roads  became  more  open, 
men  and  women  both  usually  traveled  on  horse- 
back, and,  as  they  were  used  to  doing  in  the  Old 
Country,  the  women  would  sometimes  ride  on  a 
"  pillion,"  or  cushion,  prepared  for  them  at  the 
back  of  the  saddle,  holding  on  to  the  belt  of  the 
rider  in  front. 

Sometimes  two  men  with  a  single  horse  would 
cover  long  distances  more  easily  by  the  method 
of  traveling  known  as  "  ride  and  tie."  One  man 
would  mount  the  horse,  and  after  riding  for  a 
short  distance  at  good  speed,  would  dismount, 


Making  the  Homestead  149 

tie  the  horse  by  the  roadside,  and  go  forward  on 
foot.  The  second  man  coming  up  would  mount 
the  horse,  pass  his  companion  on  the  road,  and 
after  riding  for  a  time,  would  dismount  in  turn 
and  leave  the  tied  horse  for  the  other.  In  this 
way  they  both  would  travel  much  faster  than 
either  could  go  on  foot,  or  the  horse  could  carry 
double,  and  this  because  all  three  would  have 
times  of  resting. 

The  earliest  wagons  did  not  come  until  quite 
late  in  colonial  history,  except,  perhaps,  in  the 
richer  plantations  of  the  South,  where  they  were 
imported  from  England.  In  the  lumber  districts 
oxen  were  used  for  dragging  great  trees  along 
the  roads  in  winter,  and  also  for  carrying  heavy 
loads,  in  the  rough  ox-carts,  or  for  dragging  by 
means  of  the  ox-chain  the  flat  wooden  "  boats  " 
upon  which  loads  of  stone  or  earth  could  be 
transported. 

The  form  of  the  houses  in  the  more  northern 
colonies  was  usually  square,  but,  in  order  to  let 
the  snow  slide  easily  from  the  roofs,  these  were 
high  and  steep.  Another  reason  for  the  high 
roofs  and  square  frame  was  to  get  as  much  inside 
room  as  possible  with  the  least  work  and  material. 
The  chimneys  were  enormous,  for  in  winter  great 
logs  were  burned  in  roomy  fireplaces  day  and 


150         When  America  Was  New 

night.  Attic  and  cellar  and  kitchen  were  all 
storerooms,  in  which  were  kept  the  vegetables, 
and  herbs  that  would  not  go  into  the  sheds 
and  barns,  the  family  clothing,  furniture,  and  the 
thousand  odds  and  ends  of  a  household  that  must 
depend  on  itself,  instead  of  running  to  shops.  In 
the  South  houses  were  less  made  to  keep  out  the 
weather,  and  so  were  different  in  shape  and  in 
arrangement — for  much  more  of  the  time  was 
passed  outdoors. 

The  farms  and  plantations  at  first  were  mere 
cleared  spots,  and  close  up  to  them  came  the 
forest  and  swamp  lands.  The  earliest  fences 
were  the  great  tree-stumps  and  the  rocks  that 
were  pushed  aside  to  make  farming  land.  Next 
split  rails  were  used  when  animals  were  to  be 
fenced  in ;  for  wood  was  to  be  had  everywhere 
for  the  taking,  and  only  an  axe  and  wedges 
were  needed  in  rail-splitting — such  as  young 
Abraham  Lincoln  did  in  later  years.  There  are 
still  in  New  England  plenty  of  farms  that  look 
much  like  those  of  the  forefathers,  except  for  the 
presence  of  the  complicated  machines  the  Yankee 
farmer  now  uses ;  but  where  now  are  roads  and 
cleared  fields,  there  then  were  bridle  paths  and 
thick  woods,  streams  crossed  at  fords,  rude  clear 
ings  here  and  there,  full  of  fire-blackened  stumps, 


Making  the  Homestead  151 

and  only  now  and  then  a  house  or  two  in  half  a 
day's  journey  between  settlements. 

The  most  valuable  of  all  tools  to  the  lonely 
settler  was  his  axe ;  without  this  he  was  helpless, 
although  fire,  as  used  by  the  Indian,  enabled  him 
to  clear  land  for  planting.  But  the  axe  enabled 
him  to  get  timber  from  the  woods,  and  this  was 
the  most  important  of  the  early  exports.  If  it 
might  be  called  a  "  tool,"  we  might  rank  next 
his  gun,  for  it  was  a  necessity,  not  only  for  pro- 
tection, but  also  in  getting  food,  and  skins  for 
clothing. 

Indoors,  of  first  importance  and  valued  ac- 
cordingly, were  the  cooking  utensils,  especially 
great  kettles,  and  hardly  second  to  them  came 
the  spinning-wheels  for  making  thread  and  the 
loom  for  cloth.  These  things  the  settlers  brought 
with  them,  or  bought  as  soon  as  possible. 

As  there  was  plenty  of  water-power  mills,  the 
machinery  necessary  for  grinding  corn  or  for 
sawing  wood  were  among  the  earliest  things 
imported,  though  the  pestle  and  mortar  and  the 
axe  took  their  places  at  the  beginning.  The 
spinning  of  thread  was  considered  so  important 
that  the  magistrates  early  began  to  consider  ways 
of  having  boys  and  girls  taught  to  spin,  and 
ordered  each  family  to  have  among  its  members 


152         When  America  Was  New 

at  least  one  spinner,  under  penalty  of  a  fine, 
Consequently,  clothing  was  soon  made  by  the 
colonists,  and  within  a  few  years  began  to  be  sent 
to  foreign  countries. 

Mills  were  built  very  early  for  making  and 
dyeing  cloth,  though  the  making  of  thread  was 
usually  carried  on  in  the  settlers'  homes.  Wool 
could  not  be  brought  from  England,  as  it  was 
against  the  law,  and  as  soon  as  the  settlers  began 
to  raise  sheep  the  law  again  interfered  to  prevent 
their  sending  woolen  cloth  home  and  interfering 
with  England's  great  trade  in  wools. 

Leather  was  very  plentiful,  of  course,  in  the 
colonies.  Deerskins  at  first,  and  afterward  the 
hides  of  cattle  and  sheep,  were  early  made  into 
boots,  shoes,  and  leggins.  Leather  was  used  not 
only  for  shoes,  but  made  into  all  sorts  of  clothing 
which  was  valued  in  those  rough  times  because 
it  would  hardly  wear  out.  It  is  said  that  even 
women's  skirts  and  aprons  were  sometimes  made 
of  leather. 

The  list  of  contrivances  that  were  used  in  the 
home  is  almost  endless.  The  ingenuity  of  men 
and  women  contrived  mills  for  grinding  corn  by 
hand,  windmills  and  watermills  ;  cornshellers,  from 
the  rude  contrivance  made  by  setting  up  a 


Making  the  Homestead  153 

shovel  held  between  the  knees,  or  fastening  a 
long-handled  frying-pan  across  a  tub  and  scrap- 
ing the  ears  of  corn  against  .  the  iron,  to  the 
more  elaborate  machines  consisting  of  wood  set 
thick  with  nails,  or  with  a  steel  edge  that  would 
pull  the  corn  kernels  from  the  cob. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  pots,  and  ovens, 
and  some  of  the  kitchen  utensils,  but  have  said 
nothing  of  the  churn,  which  at  first  was  in  the 
old-fashioned  style,  a  barrel -like  contrivance  made 
of  hooped  staves  in  which  a  long-handled  dasher 
would  be  worked  up  and  down ;  and  afterward 
took  the  form  of  boxes  turned  over  and  over  by 
a  handle.  Cheese-making  also  had  its  appliances 
— presses  and  baskets  and  forms  in  which  the 
cheese  could  be  shaped. 

A  tool  that  we  no  longer  see  was  a  great  pair 
of  tongs  with  sharp  knife-blades  at  the  end  for 
cutting  up  sugar,  which  in  those  days,  and  many 
years  later,  came  in  enormous  cones  that  had  to 
be  cracked  up  into  small  lumps. 

Upon  the  farm  were  cider-mills,  either  worked 
by  hand  or  by  horse-power,  and  of  course  all 
sorts  of  agricultural  implements,  beginning  with 
plows  made  of  a  crooked  stick  shod  with  iron, 
harrows  built  out  of  crossed  sticks  and  sometimes 


154         When  America  Was  New 

weighted  at  the  top  with  stones,  and  the  various 
forms  of  scythes,  hoes,  and  rakes  that  do  not 
seem  old-fashioned  simply  because  they  have  re- 
mained in  use. 


CHAPTER  VII 
MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS 

IN  describing  the  life  in  the  colonial  towns  we 
shall  find  that  the  name  "  town  "  in  those 
days  covered  a  great  many  communities, 
from  a  mere  gathering  of  a  few  neighbors  at  a 
crossroads,  to  populous  cities  ;  but  there  was  not 
in  those  times  the  same  difference  between  the 
town  and  the  country  community.  Even  in  so 
big  a  place  as  New  York  after  it  was  fairly  well 
built  up,  we  see  by  the  regulations  made  that  the 
city  must  have  been  much  like  a  raw  country 
town. 

The  matters  that  troubled  the  magistrates  were 
the  disorderly  behavior  of  the  men  who  drank  at 
the  taverns  and  then  wandered  about  the  streets ; 
the  great  number  of  cattle,  goats,  and  pigs  that 
were  not  properly  cared  for  and  strayed  upon  the 
highways,  to  the  great  annoyance  of  passers-by  ; 
and  untidiness  of  the  residents  in  disposing  of  the 
waste  and  refuse  from  their  houses — which  was 
often  thrown  out  anywhere  instead  of  being  car- 
ried to  the  regular  dumping-grounds  which  were 
provided  within  the  city  limits. 
155 


156          When  America  Was  New 

Other  troubles  that  called  for  the  attention  of 
the  law-makers  were  the  great  desire  of  people 
who  had  no  right  to  do  so  to  "  preach  and  proph- 
esy," and  the  disorder  that  was  caused  at  times 
of  holiday  making ;  such  for  instance  as  during 
the  planting  of  Maypoles,  and  the  celebrating  of 
New  Year's  and  other  holidays.  Early  laws  for- 
bade the  beating  of  drums  and  the  -treating  of 
one  another  to  strong  drink  by  the  roysterers. 
Another  regulation  to  prevent  too  much  drinking 
provided  that  the  taverns  should  not  serve  their 
customers  on  Sunday  afternoon,  when  there  was 
preaching. 

From  these  regulations  we  may  see  how  gen- 
eral was  drinking,  and  also  that  the  better  people 
were  beginning  to  see  the  harm  that  was  done  by 
it,  though  as  yet  there  was  no  strong  temperance 
feeling  and  the  use  of  liquor  was  much  more 
general  among  all  classes  than  we  can  readily  be- 
lieve. It  was  even  thought  not  unbecoming  that 
men  of  fashion  should  often  drink  to  excess. 

In  the  larger  settlements  there  were  certain 
very  important  days.  On  market-days,  for  ex- 
ample, the  people  came  from  all  the  country 
around,  bringing  their  produce  and  exposing 
them  for  sale  in  the  open  spaces  where  the  town 
people  came  to  trade  and  to  gossip.  The 


Manners  and  Customs  157 

marketing  was  usually  done,  not  by  servants,  but 
by  the  families  for  themselves,  and  the  gathering 
of  sellers  and  buyers  was  a  sight  greatly  enjoyed 
by  visitors  to  the  towns  and  cities.  Thus  one 
traveler  speaks  of  seeing  the  young  ladies  come 
to  market  followed  by  servants  bearing  the 
market-basket  to  carry  home  their  purchases. 

But  though  these  scenes  were  considered 
bright,  gay,  and  full  of  activity,  there  was,  of 
course,  nothing  to  compare  with  the  throngs  we 
may  see  at  any  time  in  any  busy  street  of  our 
cities.  There  was  almost  no  traffic  until  a  much 
later  time,  when  wagons  became  common  ;  there 
were  no  carriages  or  public  conveyances,  and  we 
may  say,  in  short,  that  all  passers-by  were  either 
afoot  or  on  horseback.  To  these  we  have  only 
to  add  the  animals  driven  to  market,  and  the  city 
folk  in  their  sprucer  attire  mingling  with  the 
rougher  country  people,  to  have  a  picture  of  a 
gathering  of  town  people  in  the  colonial  days. 

As  we  have  already  said,  there  was  much  more 
of  bright  color  in  the  costumes,  and  also  a 
greater  variety  of  dress,  than  we  see,  the  only 
persons  whose  costumes  were  governed  by  any 
fixed  fashion  being  the  town  dwellers. 

As  to  the  houses  in  towns,  they  were  not 
greatly  unlike  those  in  small  settlements  to-day, 


158         When  America  Was  New 

except  that,  since  land  was  much  cheaper,  they 
were  likely  to  be  surrounded  by  gardens  or  or- 
chards, and,  at  the  back,  to  have  vegetable  plots, 
so  as  to  give  a  rural  appearance  that  was  then 
shared  by  even  the  bigger  towns  throughout  the 
old  country.  London  itself  was  still  full  of  open 
spaces  or  of  gardens  where  trees  and  flowers 
might  be  seen. 

We  must,  too,  in  picturing  an  old  town  re- 
member how  much  has  since  been  done  in 
changing  the  natural  scenery.  The  rivers  of  that 
time,  except  around  a  few  of  the  busiest  harbors, 
had  their  natural  irregular  banks,  where  now  they 
are  built  up  and  made  square  with  stonework  or 
piers.  Trees  were  much  more  plentiful,  not  only 
in  the  surrounding  country,  but  even  along  the 
streets  themselves,  and  in  private  grounds. 

Among  queer  things  we  should  note  could  we 
now  see  these  old  towns  would  be  the  great 
rarity  of  any  separation  of  the  sidewalks  from  the 
middle  of  the  road  ;  and  also  the  almost  com- 
plete absence  of  signs  ;  for  in  those  days  readers 
were  not  common,  and  it  was  more  usual  to  in- 
dicate a  shop  or  a  place  of  trade  by  some  symbol 
or  emblem  than  by  lettered  signs.  Some  traces 
of  this  custom  still  exist,  such  as  the  carved  In- 
dians in  front  of  cigar-stores,  the  great  boots  of 


Manners  and  Customs 

wood  before  shoe-shops,  the  large  horseshoe  sign 
at  the  blacksmith's,  and,  especially,  the  striped 
pole  of  the  barber,  which  has  lasted  since  the 
Middle  Ages.  Houses  were  not  numbered,  and 
in  order  to  direct  a  stranger  it  was  necessary  to 
tell  him  that  a  wanted  house  would  be  found  near 
a  certain  church,  or  "  two  turnings  back  of  the 
tallow  chandler's,"  or  "  opposite  the  town-pump." 

At  night,  of  course,  the  streets  were  not  lighted 
except  in  the  larger  places ;  and  even  in  these 
there  was  no  better  way  of  lighting  than  by 
hanging  lanterns  containing  little  oil  lamps  to 
cords  stretched  across  the  street  or  upon  tall 
poles. 

Mrs.  Earle1  points  out  that  in  New  England  the 
settlers  who  lived  near  one  another  were  very 
hospitable  until  they  had  grown  numerous 
enough  to  call  themselves  a  town,  and  that  then 
their  kindliness  and  unselfishness  were  likely  to 
be  limited  to  their  own  townspeople.  This,  she 
thinks,  came  from  the  little  travel  of  the  time, 
which  kept  towns  separated  from  one  another 
and  made  it  hard  to  know  about  strangers. 
Therefore  strangers  were  usually  suspected,  and 
if  they  came  without  introduction,  were  "  warned 

1 "  Home  Life  in  Colonial  Days." 


160         When  America  Was  New 

out."  This  warning  was  held  to  prevent  such  a 
stranger  from  becoming  a  town-charge  if  he 
should  prove  to  be  an  idler  or  a  ne'er-do-well. 

But,  further  than  this,  there  was  even  jealousy 
of  newcomers  who  tried  to  buy  property  without 
the  consent  of  the  town  authorities.  She  also 
tells  us  that  this  dislike  of  strangers  did  not 
exist  in  the  southern  colonies,  where  they  were 
usually  welcomed  and  made  much  of.  It  was 
only  in  later  days,  after  the  plantations  began  to 
be  exhausted,  that  there  came  an  end  to  this 
boundless  welcome  given  to  strangers. 

A  reason  that  may  help  to  explain  the  desire 
to  keep  out  strangers  in  many  towns  was  the 
fact  that  much  land  was  owned  in  common,  and 
so  to  admit  a  stranger  was  to  let  him  into  a  sort 
of  partnership  in  their  pastures  and  herds.  • 

To  care  for  this  common  town-property,  each 
community  had  certain  offices,  such  as  the  cow- 
herds, pound-keepers,  fence-viewers  and  hay  wards. 
Hog-reeves  to  take  care  of  the  swine,  were  elected 
until  our  own  times ;  and,  indeed,  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  was,  for  a  joke,  made  the  hog-reeve  of 
Concord.  In  a  great  many  towns  it  was  not 
unusual  to  call  the  men  together  to  do  any  heavy 
piece  of  work,  such  as  clearing  new  land. 

All  these  little  offices  brought  a  certain  dignity 


Manners  and  Customs  161 

to  the  men  who  held  them,  for  in  colonial  days 
there  was  much  importance  attached  to  social 
classes.  In  the  churches  and  in  the  colleges,  at 
town  meetings,  and,  indeed,  wherever  men  gath- 
ered together,  it  was  usual  to  classify  the  people 
according  to  a  fixed  scale  in  which  each  family 
knew  its  place  and  was  jealous  to  keep  it. 

Thus  in  the  early  days  of  the  colleges  the 
names  of  the  students  were  put  in  the  order  fixed 
by  their  social  standing.  High  in  the  scale  came 
the  royal  authorities,  as  representatives  of  the 
crown.  The  governor  and  his  following  would 
thus  come  first,  but  closely  following  them  we 
find  the  different  professions;  the  clergy  first, 
then  the  lawyers  and  doctors.  It  is  very  likely, 
however,  that  the  officers  of  the  army  would 
outrank  any  of  the  professional  men,  unless  it  be 
the  clergy ;  but  of  course  this  would  be  because 
of  their  rank  at  home.  Outside  of  this  ranking 
according  to  position,  and  even  more  important, 
were  the  English  aristocracy,  of  whom  not  many 
came  to  the  colonies  except  as  proprietors  of 
lands  or  officials  of  the  government. 

Of  course  where  social  classes  were  so  im- 
portant it  is  evident  that  there  was  much  au- 
thority in  the  hands  of  the  leading  men.  We 
have  seen  that  certain  proprietors,  like  the  Lords 


162         When  America  Was  New 

Baltimore  in  Maryland,  and  the  great  patroons 
in  New  Amsterdam,  had  almost  royal  power 
over  the  people  whom  they  brought  with  them 
to  America.  In  New  England  the  power  to 
control  affairs  was  mainly  in  the  hands  of  the 
men  who  governed  the  churches.  Only  by  be- 
ing a  church  member  did  one  obtain  the  right  to 
be  heard  in  regard  to  all  matters  of  public  in- 
terest ;  and  admission  to  membership  in  the 
churches  was  governed  by  the  ministers  and  the 
elders  of  each  congregation. 

These  same  men,  too,  were  the  magistrates. 
They  did  not  hesitate  to  punish  severely  by  send- 
ing to  jail,  whipping,  putting  into  the  pillory, 
branding  or  even  by  more  cruel  ways,  those  who 
did  not  keep  the  laws.  It  would  make  most  un- 
pleasant reading  to  give  a  list  of  the  punishments 
evil-doers  had  to  suffer;  but  the  fashion  of  the 
time  in  England  and  on  the  Continent  had  been 
brought  over  to  America,  and  the  times  were 
cruel. 

The  pillory,  for  example,  was  an  arrangement 
for  fastening  sometimes  the  feet  and  some- 
times the  head  and  hands  by  locking  them  into 
holes  in  a  board,  and  the  person  in  the  pillory 
had  to  submit  helplessly  to  insults  and  to  pelt- 
ings  at  the  hands  of  the  idlers  and  thoughtless 


Manners  and  Customs  163 

boys  of  the  town.  Women  for  the  not  uncom- 
mon offense  of  "  scolding  "  could  be  ducked,  and 
for  this  purpose  were  tied  in  a  chair  at  the  end 
of  a  long  pole  and  then  lowered  into  the  water. 
At  other  times  the  scold  would  have  her  tongue 
put  for  hours  into  a  split  stick. 

The  same  cruelty  was  shown  in  punishing 
children  in  the  schools,  where  flogging  was 
thought  to  be  necessary,  and  children  were  often 
forced  to  stand  in  uncomfortable  positions  or 
otherwise  made  to  suffer  for  the  smallest  offenses. 
Another  punishment  that  was  common  was  com- 
pelling men  or  women  to  wear  placards  indicat- 
ing of  what  offense  they  had  been  guilty.  Thus 
we  read  of  a  drunkard  who  was  compelled  for 
several  months  to  wear  around  his  neck  a  great 
letter  D.  These  were  the  milder  forms  of  pun- 
ishment, and  many  were  worse. 

In  the  South  the  governing  bodies  were  made 
up  of  the  more  important  men  of  the  community, 
who  met  occasionally  and  made  such  laws  as 
they  needed,  having  full  power  except  so  far  as 
they  were  kept  in  check  by  the  authorities  in 
England,  whose  interference  amounted  to  very 
little  and  only  applied  to  graver  matters. 

The  affairs  of  the  Virginia  Colony,  for  example, 
were  controlled  by  the  rich  planters,  and  these, 


164         When  America  Was  New 

when  they  died,  were  succeeded  by  their  eldest 
sons  ;  for  their  laws  provided  that  these  should 
inherit  just  as  in  England,  and  the  Virginia  law 
even  allowed  that  an  estate  should  be  so  left 
from  eldest  son  to  eldest  son  so  that  none  of  them 
could  dispose  of  it. 

These  Virginian  rulers  were  known  as  "  bur- 
gesses." They  were  chosen  from  each  county, 
and  were  accustomed  to  meet  at  the  capital  and 
make  laws.  These  laws,  it  is  true,  had  to  be 
sent  to  the  King  for  approval,  but  they  remained 
in  force  unless  disapproved  by  him.  There  was 
a  governor  appointed  by  the  King,  and  he  had  a 
council  selected  from  many  of  the  most  promi- 
nent Virginia  families,  each  councilor  being 
commissioned  as  a  colonel  in  the  army — to 
which  fact,  as  Sydney  Fisher  points  out,  is  prob- 
ably due  the  general  use  of  the  term,  "  Colonel," 
in  Virginia  as  a  complimentary  title. 

The  Virginians  were  royalists ;  that  is,  they 
supported  the  King  in  the  war  between  the 
Stuarts  and  the  Puritans,  and  after  the  Restora- 
tion, Cromwell  even  sent  a  fleet  across  the  sea  to 
threaten  Virginia,  which  he  knew  was  opposed 
to  his  government.  All  trouble  was  avoided 
by  a  treaty  of  peace  drawn  up  between  the 
colonies  and  the  English  fleet,  and  under  this 


Manners  and  Customs  165; 

treaty  Virginia  was  left  really  free  to  carry  on 
her  own  affairs  in  her  own  way. 

Although  there  was  now  and  again  some 
trouble  with  the  royal  governors,  the  Virginia 
Colony  was  always  too  strong  to  be  subdued, 
and  remained  really  independent  even  down  to 
the  time  of  the  American  Revolution. 

The  only  cases  in  which  serious  quarrels  seems 
to  have  been  avoided  for  a  long  time  were  in 
those  colonies  where  a  grant  of  land  with  full 
powers  to  govern  it  was  made,  such  a  settlement, 
for  example,  as  Pennsylvania  in  the  North  and 
Maryland  in  the  South.  In  payment  of  a  debt, 
the  King  had  granted  to  William  Penn  almost 
full  power  to  make  laws  for  Pennsylvania,  re- 
serving only  the  right  to  put  an  end  to  any  law 
during  the  first  three  years  of  its  existence ;  and 
this  right,  of  course,  amounted  in  practice  to 
very  little,  Penn  himself,  in  his  turn,  gave  to 
the  colonists  almost  complete  self-government, 
not  even  reserving  as  much  power  over  their 
laws  as  the  King  had  done. 

Very  similar  powers  had  been  granted  to  the 
Calverts,  the  Lords  Baltimore,  and  they  in  turn, 
either  by  their  own  wish  or  because  it  was  found 
best,  gave  the  power  of  governing  almost  entirely 
into  the  hands  of  the  settlers  themselves. 


166         When  America  Was  New 

There  was  one  circumstance  that  had  a  very 
great  effect  upon  the  question  of  how  much 
power  the  English  Crown  should  retain  over  its 
colonies  in  America,  for  it  must  be  remembered 
that  in  those  days  the  management  of  the  colonies 
was  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  King  and  his 
ministers,  rather  than  in  that  of  the  lawmakers 
of  the  home  country.  The  trouble  between  the 
Commons  of  England  and  the  Stuart  kings  had 
begun  not  long  after  the  first  settling  in  America, 
and  by  1643  the  great  civil  war  that  was  to  end 
in  dethroning  and  beheading  King  Charles  I 
divided  all  England  into  two  hostile  camps. 

During  the  seven  years  of  fighting,  the  colonies 
were  left  to  look  out  for  themselves.  After  peace 
had  come,  it  was  the  Puritans  and  the  Inde- 
pendents who  were  in  control.  Therefore  the 
ruling  powers  in  England  were  disposed  to  be 
very  friendly  to  the  colonists,  or  if  not  friendly 
to  them,  yet  to  believe  that  they  ought  to  gov- 
ern themselves  with  little  interference  from  at 
home. 

It  was  not  until  a  whole  generation  after  the 
beginning  of  the  English  civil  war  that  a  Stuart 
king  came  back  to  the  throne  and  tried  to  carry 
out  the  old  ideas  about  giving  laws  to  the  colonies 
in  America.  When  this  restored  king,  Charles 


Manners  and  Customs  167 

II,  had  leisure  to  think  about  it,  he  picked  out  a 
number  of  governors  and  sent  them  to  America 
for  the  purpose  of  taking  once  more  into  his  own 
hands  the  reins  of  government  and  of  recovering 
the  powers  that  bad  been  lost  during  the  exile  of 
the  Stuarts. 

There  were,  in  fact,  three  main  kinds  of  gov- 
ernment in  the  colonies.  In  the  first  case  the 
colony  was  directly  under  control  of  the  king, 
and  was  known  as  a  "  royal  colony."  He  could 
make  laws  to  suit  himself,  or  could  appoint  men 
and  give  them  power  to  make  laws,  and  the  only 
limit  on  his  power  was  the  same  limit  that  applied 
to  his  power  over  Englishmen  everywhere. 

The  second  kind  of  colony  was  governed  un- 
der a  charter,  a  paper  which  had  been  granted  by 
the  King  and  which  pointed  out  the  rules  under 
which  the  colony  must  be  conducted. 

The  third  kind  of  colony  was  known  as  "  pro- 
prietary." In  this  case  the  land  on  which  the 
colony  was  situated  had  been  granted  to  an 
owner,  or  proprietor,  and  he  was  permitted  to 
make  the  rules  governing  those  dwelling  therein. 
Out  of  the  thirteen  colonies,  seven  were  royal, 
three  each  were  governed  by  charter  and  by 
proprietors. 

As  already  stated,  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland 


168         When  America  Was  New 

were  proprietary  colonies,  and  to  these  must  be 
added  Delaware,  which  was  made  out  of  territory 
granted  to  the  Calverts.  The  three  that  were  gov- 
erned by  charter  were  Massachusetts,  Connecticut, 
and  Rhode  Island.  New  York  had  at  first  been 
granted  to  the  Duke  of  York,  as  proprietor;  but 
when  he  came  to  the  throne  as  James  II  the 
colony  at  once  became  a  royal  colony.  New 
Jersey  had  been  originally  granted  to  proprietors, 
but  was  afterward  bought  by  the  King,  and  the 
same  was  the  case  with  North  and  South 
Carolina. 

The  power  to  enforce  the  law  was  usually  in 
the  hands  of  officers  like  sheriffs,  who  carried  out 
the  directions  of  the  magistrates,  but  when  the 
law-breakers  were  too  many  or  too  strong,  of 
course  the  power  of  punishing  was  taken  up  by 
the  men  of  the  community,  all  of  whom  in  so 
new  a  country  were  accustomed  to  handle  fire- 
arms, either  from  experience  in  fighting  the 
Indians  or  because  they  were  hunters  or  sports- 
men. 

There  were,  even  from  the  very  beginning, 
men  set  apart  for  training  the  men  of  the  colonies 
in  arms  ;  and  as  the  towns  grew  in  size  the  men 
were  formed  into  regular  militia  companies  with 
officers  of  their  own,  usually  elected.  These 


Manners  and  Customs  169 

men  did  not  have  regular  uniforms,  nor  were 
they  all  armed  in  the  same  way.  But  most  of 
them  had  guns,  and  those  who  had  not  were 
armed  as  many  of  the  English  soldiers  of  the 
time  were,  with  pikes,  that  is,  poles  tipped  with  a 
metal  point.  The  guns  were  of  course  all  loaded 
in  the  old-fashioned  way,  at  the  muzzle  with  a 
ramrod,  the  powder  being  carried  in  a  powder- 
horn  slung  over  the  shoulder  and  the  bullets  be- 
ing often  put  into  a  patch  of  greased  cloth,  so  as 
to  prevent  the  escape  of  the  gases.  The  earliest 
settlers  used  "  match-locks,"  guns  fired  with  a 
burning  fuse,  but  later  flint-locks  came  in,  and 
remained  in  use  during  all  the  colonial  time. 

But  the  soldiers  of  the  colonies,  though  not 
well  trained  and  greatly  despised  by  the  regular 
army,  were  best  fitted  for  fighting  in  the  New 
World  where  there  were  few  regular  battles,  but 
the  fighting  consisted  of  skirmishing  in  the 
woods,  each  man  looking  out  for  himself  and 
taking  what  shelter  he  could  find.  Even  when  it 
was  necessary  to  attack  an  Indian  stronghold — 
for  the  Indians  long  before  the  white  men  came 
used  palisade  forts  around  their  towns — the  fight- 
ing was  not  at  all  like  that  of  the  European 
soldiers.  They  had,  usually,  no  cannon,  and 
depended  upon  the  use  of  fire  or  upon  a 


170         When  America  Was  New 

bold  charge  to  destroy  or  capture  the  Indian 
forts. 

During  the  time  when  trouble  with  the  Indians 
was  feared,  it  was  very  common  to  surround  not 
only  the  more  lonely  houses,  but  even  whole 
towns,  with  strong  palisade  fortresses.  Where 
the  neighbors  were  too  few  to  build  such  a  big 
stronghold  they  at  least  joined  to  make  one 
strong  blockhouse,  so  that  they  and  their  families 
could  take  refuge  against  an  Indian  attack.  The 
blockhouse  was  made  of  very  heavy  square  tim- 
bers, with  thick,  well-barred  windows,  narrow 
loopholes  from  which  the  settlers  within  could 
shoot.  The  upper  story  reached  out  over  the 
lower,  and  had  openings  through  which  those 
above  could  shoot  any  enemies  who  tried  to  set 
fire  to  the  logs  or  to  beat  in  the  door. 

In  the  stories  of  James  Fenimore  Cooper  there 
is  more  than  one  account  of  the  attack  and  de- 
fense of  such  a  little  fort,  explaining  how  the 
Indians  would  try  to  set  fire  to  it  by  shooting 
burning  arrows  into  the  walls  or  on  the  roof. 
These  arrows  carried  a  bunch  of  burning  birch 
bark  or  other  light  stuff.  Against  this  danger 
the  settlers  provided  by  covering  the  roof  with 
raw  hides  or  making  it  flat  and  filling  it  with 
earth  ;  and  they  also  kept  ready  great  tanks  of 


Manners  and  Customs  171 

water,  which,  by  means  of  gourds,  could  be  flung 
upon  the  flames. 

A  number  of  these  old  forts,  or  blockhouses, 
still  stand  in  New  England. 

Much  of  the  colonial  warfare  was  modeled  on 
what  had  been  learned  from  the  Indians.  Each 
man  would  carry  his  own  provisions  and  the 
troops  would  march  through  the  woods  along 
the  narrow  paths  under  the  leadership  of  a  guide 
without  keeping  any  regular  order.  The  actual 
fighting  was  also  like  that  of  the  Indians  them- 
selves, being  a  sort  of  duel  between  pairs  of  white 
men  and  Indians  and  seldom  coming  to  a  hand- 
to-hand  struggle,  or  a  charge  of  many  at  a  time. 

All  this  brought  about  an  entirely  new  way  of 
fighting,  such  as  was  not  understood  by  the  regu- 
lar soldiers  sent  from  abroad,  and  was  despised 
by  them  until  they  were  forced  to  learn  it  by 
serious  defeats  at  the  hands  of  the  French  and 
Indians. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  INDOOR  LIFE 

IN  viewing  the  circumstances  of  the  colonial 
families  we  may  say  of  them,  in  general, 
that  they  lived  usually  in  great  comfort  ex- 
cept for  the  severe  cold  of  the  Avinters.  Some  of 
their  ways  would  have  seemed  very  strange  to 
us.  Thus  we  are  told  that  a  breakfast  might 
consist  of  rye  bread,  butter,  buckwheat  cakes, 
and  pie  ;  dinner  of  salt  pork,  vegetables,  and  pie 
again.  Pies  were  of  course  very  popular  in  New 
England,  and  sometimes  a  stock  was  made  at 
Thanksgiving  and  frozen  to  keep  over  winter. 
An  old  man,  in  speaking  of  his  boyhood,  winds 
up  by  saying :  "In  the  evening  we  visited, 
chatted,  ate  apples,  drank  cider,  and  told  stories. 
On  Sunday  nights  the  boys  went  courting." 

The  women's  hands  were  seldom  idle.  Proba- 
bly during  even  the  courting  spoken  of  as  a  Sun- 
day night  diversion  the  young  woman  did  not  sit 
with  idle  hands,  but  embroidered  a  lace  veil  or  a 
muslin  cap,  or,  if  young  enough,  worked  upon 
her  sampler.  This  was  a  piece  of  linen  contain- 
ing a  set  of  alphabets  such  as  they  used  in  mark- 
172 


The  Indoor  Life  173 

ing  household  linen,  the  name  and  age  of  the  girl 
who  worked  it,  and  often  a  rude  rhyme  or  some 
pious  sentiment. 

The  daughter  of  Myles  Standish,  for  example, 
worked  upon  her  sampler  these  lines : 

"  Lora  [  Laura  J  Standish  is  my  name. 

Lord,  guide  my  heart  that  I  may  do  thy  will ; 

Also  fill  my  hands  with  such  convenient  skill 
As  will  conduce  to  virtue  void  of  shame, 
And  I  will  give  the  glory  to  thy  name." 

Sometimes  the  samplers  contained  pictures,  but 
these  were  not  common. 

In  looking  around  an  old  colonial  home,  we 
should  notice  the  herbs  that  hung  from  the  raft- 
ers, beams,  and  walls ;  the  hour-glass  upon  the 
high  mantel ;  the  flint-lock  on  nails  above  the 
fireplace,  where  it  was  kept  free  from  rust ;  the 
rows  of  candlesticks  and  the  tray  with  snuffers 
that  also  stood  upon  the  mantel. 

Thurlow  Weed,  as  quoted  in  an  article  in  the 
American  Magazine  nearly  a  dozen  years  ago, 
speaks  of  the  hours  of  leisure  by  the  fireside  in 
winter  time  as  being  the  most  valuable  time  to 
the  farmer's  son.  By  the  firelight,  even  though 
doing  some  handiwork,  a  boy  could  read  with 
keen  appetite  the  few  books  that  came  his  way. 
"  I  remember,"  he  tells  us,  "  to  have  read  a  his- 


174         When  America  Was  New 

tory  of  the  French  Revolution  while  tending  sap- 
kettles  in  a  sugar-camp.  I  remember  also  how 
happy  I  was  to  borrow  the  book  after  a  two-mile 
tramp  through  the  snow,  shoeless." 

From  the  same  article  we  take  a  list  of  the 
baptismal  names  given  in  a  single  family,  un- 
doubtedly a  Puritan  one.  For  those  times  the 
family  was  not  large,  consisting  of  only  nine 
children,  who  were  named  as  follows  :  Experience, 
Waitstill,  Preserved,  Hopestill,  Wait,  Thanks, 
Unite,  Desire,  and  Supply.  But  with  the  down- 
fall of  the  stricter  Puritanism  these  names  began 
to  be  disused,  and  even  the  Biblical  names  that 
lasted  longer,  are  now  kept  up  mainly  where  the 
memory  of  some  ancestor  is  to  be  honored. 

It  is  often  said  that  in  old  times  the  hours  for 
meals  were  very  different  from  our  awn,  and  that 
dinner,  for  example,  has  changed  from  being  a 
forenoon  meal  to  one  that  is  taken  all  the  way 
from  noon  until  late  in  the  evening.  But  this 
does  not  come  from  any  mysterious  cause.  When 
the  lighting  of  the  house  was  poor,  and  the  peo- 
ple of  the  household  worked  hard  from  early 
dawn  until  nightfall,  they  naturally  divided  their 
day  differently.  The  farmer  who  goes  afield  at 
four  or  five  o'clock  in  a  summer  morning  needs 
a  substantial  meal  at  least  as  early  as  noon,  and 


The  Indoor  Life  175 

is  quite  ready  for  bed  soon  after  sundown.  So 
long  as  such  conditions  remained,  the  custom  of 
taking  an  early  dinner  of  course  was  followed, 
and  most  sensibly.  Under  the  same  conditions 
we  should  adopt  the  same  rules. 

We  have  not  space  to  tell  at  length  the  story 
of  the  strict  New  England  Sabbath.  It  began  at 
sundown  on  Saturday  night,  ending  at  the  same 
hour  on  Sunday  night,  and  was  strictly  observed 
in  a  way  to  make  everybody  miserable.  The 
only  excitement  that  relieved  the  solemn  hours 
was  church-going,  of  which  we  quote  an  excellent 
little  account  credited  by  the  American  Magazine 
to  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe : 

"  To  my  childish  eyes  our  meeting  house  was 
fashioned  on  the  model  of  Noah's  ark  and  Solo- 
mon's Temple.  Its  double  rows  of  windows,  of 
which  I  knew  the  number  by  heart ;  its  doors, 
with  great  wooden  quirks  over  them  ;  its  belfry, 
projecting  out  at  the  east  end  ;  its  steeple  and 
bell,  all  inspired  as  much  sense  of  the  sublime  as 
Strasburg  Cathedral  itself.  How  magnificent  to 
my  eyes  seemed  the  turnip-like  canopy  that  hung 
over  the  minister's  head,  hooked  by  a  long  iron 
rod  to  the  wall  above.  How  I  wondered  at  the 
panels  on  either  side  of  the  pulpit,  carved  and 
painted  as  a  flaming  red  tulip.  The  area  of  the 


176         When  America  Was  New 

house  was  divided  into  large  square  pews,  finished 
with  a  balustrade  ten  inches  high.  Through 
these  loopholes  the  children  could  watch  each 
other  and  report  discoveries." 

From  a  story  of  old  times  we  learn  with  what 
delight  the  children  greeted  the  setting  of  the  sun 
on  Sunday  night,  rushing  into  the  roads  with 
cries  of  delight  and  plunging  immediately  into 
the  games  that  had  been  forbidden. 

Sydney  Fisher  *  speaks  of  Virginia  and  its  con- 
ditions of  life  as  being  such  as  at  the  present  time 
are  not  thought  to  be  those  that  lead  to 
prosperity  or  making  a  people  great.  He  says : 
"  There  were  no  manufacturing  industries,  no 
merchants  or  tradesmen,  few  mechanics  except 
of  the  rudest  sort,  no  money  except  tobacco, 
and  all  the  methods  of  exchange  and  business 
were  cumbersome  and  slow."  The  land  would 
have  produced  iron,  indigo,  lumber  and  beef,  but 
all  these  sources  of  wealth  were  neglected. 

There  were  few  schools,  and  no  communities 
where  many  people  were  brought  together ;  and 
yet  the  Virginians,  he  says,  became  the  most 
high-spirited,  independent,  capable  men  in 
America,  the  leaders  of  the  Revolution,  makers 
of  the  Constitution,  and  the  statesmen  of  the 
1 "  Men,  Women,  and  Manners  in  Colonial  Times." 


The  Indoor  Life  177 

country.  This  result  he  explains  by  saying  that 
outdoor  life  gave  these  men  health,  the  carrying 
on  of  their  great  farms  gave  them  ability  to 
direct  affairs,  and  the  leisure  they  enjoyed  gave 
them  time  for  reading  and  for  thought. 

A  thing  that  made  the  matter  of  clothes  most 
important  in  the  old  days  was  the  fact  that 
clothes  were  a  sign  of  social  rank.  The  lower 
orders  were  forbidden  to  wear  the  richer  fabrics 
and  the  ornaments  of  dress  such  as  lace  and 
jewelry.  The  wig  also  was  generally  worn  by 
those  who  were  entitled  to  be  considered  gentle- 
men, and  the  right  to  wear  it  depended  upon 
one's  birth  and  family.  In  general  we  may  say 
that  the  richer  colonists  tried  hard  to  follow  the 
English  fashions  of  the  time,  and  that  the  Vir- 
ginian cavaliers  followed  the  court  fashions  and 
the  New  England  Puritans  the  Roundhead  ways 
in  England. 

The  fashion  of  wearing  the  hair,  for  both  men 
and  women,  was  elaborate,  and  even  sailors  and 
soldiers  wore  their  queues  and  pigtails.  But  of 
course  these  matters  of  fashion  did  not  come  up 
until  after  the  plain  days  of  the  first  settlers, 
whose  dress  had  to  be  simple  and  serviceable — 
which  accounts  for  their  frequent  wearing  of 
leather,  already  spoken  of. 


178         When  America  Was  New 

The  members  of  pioneer  families  made  great 
use  of  skins  of  animals,  making  hats  and  caps 
and  coats  out  of  raccoon  skins,  bear  skins,  and 
especially  the  skin  of  the  deer.  We  see  a  similar 
costume  worn  to-day  by  hunters  of  the  west, 
•whose  garments  of  fringed  buckskin  are  yet 
familiar  to  us  in  pictures.  In  the  woods,  where 
brush  was  to  be  met  with,  leggins  had  to  be  worn 
in  order  to  prevent  the  trousers  being  torn  to 
pieces  or  ruined  by  mud. 

Country  people  wore  homespun,  and  were 
very  fond  of  bright  colors  given  by  home-made 
dyes.  A  garment  that  countrymen  were  fond 
of  and  that  has  gone  entirely  out,  was  a 
sort  of  wide  trousers  reaching  a  little  below  the 
knee  and  being  much  like  the  Scottish  kilt,  ex- 
cept that  there  was  a  place  for  each  leg.  These 
men,  too,  were  the  first  to  wear  long  trousers  in- 
stead of  the  more  fashionable  knee-breeches,  silk 
or  woolen  stockings,  with  metal  buckles  at  the 
knee  and  on  the  shoes. 

The  dress  of  the  Virginia  gentlemen  was  hand- 
some and  dignified.  The  coats  were  long-skirted, 
waistcoats  often  of  rich  fabrics ;  they  were  ruffles 
and  lace,  short  breeches,  silk  stockings,  buckled 
shoes,  and,  for  riding,  long  boots,  often  with  large 
tops  so  they  could  be  pulled  well  up  over  the 


The  Indoor  Life  179 

leg.  In  rough  or  rainy  weather  they  wrapped 
themselves  in  great  cloaks. 

The  dress  of  the  poorer  men  was  similar  in 
shape,  though  naturally  of  coarser  materials. 
Both  men  and  women  delighted  in  bright  colors, 
as  was  fashionable  in  England  at  the  time.  The 
women  dressed  expensively,  even  extravagantly, 
in  hats  made  of  beaver,  silk  and  flowered  gowns, 
bright  scarlet  cloaks  and  rich  lace,  all  displayed 
at  church  on  Sunday  and  in  the  many  social 
gatherings. 

Edward  Eggleston  says,  in  brief,  that  "  life  in 
the  colonies  was  simply  the  life  of  Europe  of  the 
eighteenth  century  made  small  by  reflection  in 
the  provincial  mirror  " ;  and  the  same  assertion 
may  be  made  of  the  seventeenth  century  except 
for  such  changes  as  life  in  the  wilderness  made 
necessary. 

The  chief  things  to  note  are  the  fondness  of 
the  people  for  bright  colors  and  the  wearing  of 
ornaments  by  all  those  who  could  afford  either 
jewelry  or  its  imitation.  The  women's  wardrobe 
included  many  articles  no  longer  needed  because 
the  houses  are  better  warmed  and  there  is  less 
exposure  to  the  weather  outdoors.  Great  hoods, 
thick  mittens,  heavy  wadded  capes,  and  a  multi- 
plicity of  skirts,  had  to  be  worn  in  those  days 


180         When  America  Was  New 

during  the  winter.  The  men,  too,  went  about 
armored  by  thick  dress  against  the  winter's  cold. 

The  cut  of  garments  was  not  such  as  to  fit 
very  accurately,  and  it  was  a  common  thing  to 
hand  down  clothing  for  more  than  one  genera- 
tion. Certain  articles,  of  course,  such  as  moc- 
casins, were  adopted  from  the  Indians,  especially 
by  those  who  lived  a  similar  life.  In  the  men's 
dress  we  must  not  forget  the  shot-pouches,  the 
powder-horns,  the  swords  and  the  guns,  that 
made  the  hunters  and  the  gentlemen  picturesque. 

The  unpaved  streets  made  heavy  footwear 
common,  and  instead  of  boots,  the  women  had 
clogs,  or  rough  foot  coverings,  to  go  over  the 
shoes,  or  iron  pattens  to  lift  the  foot  above  the 
mire. 

The  clothing  of  the  children  of  the  better 
classes  was  in  miniature  the  same  as  their 
parents',  and  little  boys  in  skirted  coats,  long 
waistcoats,  and  ruffles,  and  little  girls  with  wide 
petticoats,  straight  bodices,  and  tiny  hoods  and 
capes-  like  those  of  their  mothers,  sat  with  their 
parents  in  the  high  pews  of  the  meeting-houses. 
In  general,  while  of  excellent  material,  the 
clothes  of  colonial  times  were  far  from  being 
well  fitted,  graceful,  or  finished  with  the  neatness 
to  which  we  are  accustomed. 


The  Indoor  Life  181 

As  to  the  food  supply,  it  has  already  been  ex- 
plained how  abundant  it  was,  as  soon  as  the 
colonists  had  learned  to  use  what  the  country 
gave  them. 

Mrs.  Earle1  tells  us  that  in  few  things  have 
ways  so  changed  as  in  the  serving  of  meals. 
The  old  pioneer  table  was  a  narrow  board  laid 
upon  trestles  and  covered  by  a  "  board-cloth." 
For  this  purpose  the  smoothed  boards  were  used, 
packing-cases  from  England  being  saved  because 
they  were  smoother  than  boards  could  be  made 
in  the  colonies,  where  there  were  no  planing- 
mills.  There  was  plenty  of  table  linen,  and  par- 
ticularly of  napkins,  for  much  of  the  food  was 
taken  with  the  fingers,  the  first  fork  coming  to 
America  for  Governor  Winthrop  in  1633.  In 
the  middle  of  the  table  stood  a  large  salt-dish, 
and  along  the  sides  were  set  cups  for  drinking, 
spoons  and  knives,  and  great  slabs  of  wood 
slightly  .hollowed  out,  instead  of  plates.  These 
were  the  trenchers,  and  were  used  just  as  plates 
are  to-day,  though  they  were  rare  enough  to 
make  it  common  for  more  than  one  person  to 
use  a  single  trencher. 

In  the  scarcity  of  earthenware  many  things  be- 
sides plates  were  made  of  wood,  even  bottles  and 

l«  Home  Life  in  Colonial  Times.-" 


182         When  America  Was  New 

drinking-cups.  Instead  of  pitchers  were  often 
used  little  casks  made  and  hooped  like  barrels. 
Some  families  had  large  platters  made  of  pew- 
ter, and  these  were  scoured  bright  and  put  upon 
the  kitchen  dresser,  as  silver  might  be  exhibited 
on  a  modern  sideboard. 

Much  of  the  food  was  served  in  soups,  stews 
and  hashes,  and  could  be  eaten  with  spoons. 
The  spoons  also  were  made  of  wood  and  pewter, 
with  a  few  of  silver  for  the  more  luxurious,  while 
the  Indians  made  excellent  spoons  out  of  horn. 
Glass  of  all  kinds  was  at  first  an  extreme  rarity 
in  America,  and  even  crudely  made  bottles  were 
valued  highly.  Its  place  was  taken  at  times  for 
drinking-cups  and  bottles  by  cups  made  of 
leather  and  jugs  of  the  same  material.  Horn 
cups  were  also  not  uncommon,  and  gourds  could 
be  made  not  only  into  drinking-cups  but  into 
dippers  and  scoops. 

Of  course  there  were  a  few  rich  people  who 
were  able  to  import  from  England  china  and 
glass  and  to  furnish  their  tables  richly  with  silver, 
but  we  are  telling  of  the  ordinary  colonist  house- 
hold. 

On  each  side  of  the  narrow  tables  we  have 
described  were  long  benches,  and  only  the  elders 
sat,  even  on  these  uncomfortable  backless  seats, 


The  Indoor  Life  183 

the  children  often  having  to  stand  throughout 
the  meal.  Dinners  were  not  served  in  courses, 
but  everything  was  put  on  the  table  at  once,  and, 
according  to  Mrs.  Earle,  the  pudding,  when  it 
was  served,  was  the  first  thing  on  the  bill  of  fare. 

In  the  better  houses  there  was  considerable 
form  and  style  in  the  serving  of  meals,  but  among 
the  poorer  sometimes  a  meal  consisted  simply  of 
putting  a  great  dish  of  food  in  the  centre  of  the 
table  and  letting  each  one  of  the  company  help 
himself  from  the  same  dish  with  a  big  spoon. 

In  telling  how  a  family  entered  the  wilderness 
and  built  up  its  home,  we  have  given  a  good  idea 
of  what  passed  for  furniture  in  the  rude  cabins, 
mentioning  the  old  settle  as  especially  necessary 
before  the  big  fireplaces.  We  have  also  told 
how,  gaining  a  little  time  and  increasing  in  skill 
with  the  axe,  the  furniture,  though  rude,  became 
more  than  mere  makeshifts ;  and  it  has  been  said 
that  for  the  housewife  the  most  important  part 
of  her  household  goods  was  the  loom  and  the 
spinning-wheels  for  making  the  family  clothing. 

In  speaking  of  the  food  and  the  table  we  have 
been  led  to  telling  something  of  the  tableware  and 
of  the  things  used  for  cooking.  The  rest  of  the 
furniture  used  in  colonial  houses  was  mainly 
made  up  of  articles  for  covering  the  floors,  which 


184         When  America  Was  New 

were  very  necessary  in  the  unheated  houses,  and 
the  room  furniture  that  helped  so  much  in  the 
comfort  of  living. 

It  will  be  understood,  of  course,  that  every 
scrap  of  cloth  found  its  use  and  was  saved  to  the 
smallest  bit.  Rags  and  remnants  were  put  away 
until  a  stock  of  them  was  gathered,  were  then 
tied  or  sewed  into  long  strips,  and  made  into  rugs, 
either  by  weaving  or  by  braiding  or  by  being 
sewed  together.  We  still  see  in  old  houses  the 
rug  carpets  made  out  of  these  strips,  either  by 
curling  them  around  themselves  in  a  flat  spiral 
and  sewing  the  edges  together,  or  by  braiding 
them  into  strips  joined  in  the  same  way ;  or,  when 
they  were  thin  enough,  weaving  them  into  a 
rough  fabric  that  not  only  wore  well,  but  had  a 
very  artistic  effect  because  of  the  rich  pattern 
made  by  the  contrasting  colors.  Pieces  of  silk 
gave  material  for  quilts,  and  part  of  the  artistic 
taste  of  the  women  went  to  the  devising  of 
curious  patterns  for  putting  together  the  little 
patches  to  produce  striking  results.  Many  of 
these  patterns  became  very  popular  and  were,  as  a 
favor,  shown  by  one  housewife  to  another. 

The  bedsteads  were  very  often  provided  with 
high  posts  at  the  corners,  since  it  was  almost 
necessary  that  the  sleepers  should  be  protected 


The  Indoor  Life  185 

from  the  cold  rooms  by  heavy  curtains  hanging 
from  a  frame  that  could  be  drawn  around  them. 
Such  bedsteads  were  used  in  the  old  country  for 
the  same  reason,  and  were  sometimes  very 
elaborately  carved. 

The  furniture- makers  of  about  that  time  were 
very  skilful  workmen,  through  lifelong  practice 
at  handwork  and  because  during  their  apprentice- 
ship they  had  learned  to  copy  the  best  models  in 
old  furniture  as  handed  down  for  ages.  Things 
were  made  to  last,  and  those  forms  that  lasted 
the  longest  were  apt  to  be  followed  as  good  mod- 
els. Besides,  in  the  old  countries,  where  wood 
was  not  plentiful,  that  form  of  table  or  chair 
which  made  the  best  use  of  the  least  material 
would  be  chosen  by  cabinet-makers. 

Most  of  the  pieces  that  went  to  the  making  up 
of  the  old  furniture  were  hand-shaped,  the  only 
machine  tool  that  was  in  common  use  being  the 
turning-lathe.  Consequently  there  was  no  need 
to  choose  for  furniture  forms  that  could  be  easily 
made  in  great  numbers  by  machines — a  thing 
that  has  done  away  with  many  of  the  best 
patterns. 

The  chests  of  drawers,  cabinets  and  other 
places  for  putting  things  away,  were  usually  set 
upon  tall  legs,  so  that  the  housewife  might  be 


186         When  America  Was  New 

sure  that  the  space  beneath  could  be  kept  clean. 
It  was  not  at  all  unusual  in  those  days  when  few 
families  could  possess  many  pieces  of  furniture, 
to  make  one  that  combined  several  uses.  A 
good  example  was  the  old-fashioned  secretary. 
This,  in  one  piece  of  furniture,  combined  a  chest 
of  drawers,  atop  of  which  came  a  writing-desk 
with  a  lid  that  opened  out  to  make  a  writing  sur- 
face, thus  showing  a  set  of  pigeon-holes  and 
small  drawers,  and  above  this  came  a  few  shelves, 
enough  to  hold  all  the  books  then  likely  to  be  in 
any  household. 

A  tall,  flat  piece  of  furniture  was  a  set  of 
shelves  for  the  kitchen  or  dining-room  which  en- 
abled the  housewife  to  put  on  view  her  stock  of 
brightly-scoured  pewter.  Another  thing  valued 
by  wives  was  an  oaken  chest,  often  carved,  to 
serve  for  the  storage  of  fine  linen,  while  the  stock 
for  daily  use  was  kept  in  chests  of  drawers  or 
linen-presses — cupboards  with  shelves. 

Clocks  of  course  were  rare  at  first,  and  found 
only  in  the  better  homes,  the  poorer  people  depend- 
ing upon  sun  dials  or  upon  a  noon-mark — a  mark 
made  where  the  sun  cast  a  shadow  on  some  door- 
way or  window  or  post  just  at  noon.  Other  orna- 
mental pieces  of  furniture  were  the  fire-irons  and 
andirons  that  made  grand  the  principal  fireplace. 


The  Indoor  Life  187 

In  the  ruder  homes  for  light  in  the  evening 
they  depended  upon  their  great  wood-fires  or 
used  pine  knots  or  torches.  The  pitch-pine 
knots  burned  so  clearly  that  they  were  commonly 
called  candle  wood,  which  was  saved  carefully  for 
lighting.  Of  course  the  greatest  use  of  these  pine 
knots  was  in  the  South,  but  they  were  also  fre- 
quent even  so  farth  north  as  Maine. 

At  first  there  was  no  tallow  to  make  candles, 
and  even  after  domestic  animals  became  com- 
moner the  candles  were  expensive  and  were  used 
with  great  care.  The  making  of  the  candles  at 
home  was  hard  work.  The  tallow  was  melted  in 
great  kettles  and  then  bits  of  wick  of  hemp,  tow, 
or  cotton  (and  sometimes  even  the  down  of 
milkweed)  were  tied  to  long  sticks  so  that  they 
could  be  lowered  into  the  melted  tallow.  When 
the  tallow  had  hardened  on  them,  they  were 
dipped  once  more,  and  thus  gradually  the  dipped 
candles  became  thick  enough  to  use.  By  using 
two  kettles  the  housewife  could  always  have  one 
heating  while  the  other  could  be  used  for  dip- 
ping. At  a  little  later  date  the  melted  tallow  was 
poured  into  hollow  tin  forms,  or  moulds,  the 
wick  being  suspended  in  the  middle,  and  this 
made  the  moulded  candle.  Sometimes  men  trav- 
eled about  with  these  moulds,  making  candles  for 


l88         When  America  Was  New 

different  families.  Wax  candles  were  made  after 
the  farmers  began  to  keep  honey  bees. 

Substitutes  were  made  by  dipping  the  pith  of 
rushes  into  grease,  forming  rushlights,  or  by 
moulding  candles  out  of  the  berries  of  the  bay- 
berry  bush.  These  last  were  much  valued  be- 
cause of  the  pleasant  odor  they  gave  when  burn- 
ing. The  bayberry  candles  were  more  costly 
than  tallow,  did  not  bend  so  easily,  and  burned 
slowly.  The  bayberry  bushes  grew  everywhere, 
and  the  berries  were  often  gathered  by  children. 

When  the  colonists  had  learned  to  capture 
whales,  which,  in  the  early  days  were  found  not 
seldom  even  off  the  shores  of  Long  Island,  they 
secured  two  excellent  materials  for  lighting.  The 
whale  oil  could  be  burned  in  lamps,  and  was  used 
universally  until  the  cheaper  kerosene  came  in, 
and  the  spermaceti  taken  from  the  head  of  the 
whale  made  very  superior  candles. 

Housewives  made  the  most  of  the  expensive 
candles,  carefully  using  them  to  the  last  bit  in  a 
little  wire  frame  called  a  "  save-all." 

In  the  better  class  houses  candlesticks  were  of 
pewter  or  silver,  but  they  were  used  in  every 
form,  even  to  a  simple  chandelier  of  crossed  sticks 
at  the  ends  of  which  were  sharp  nails  to  support 
the  tallow-candles. 


The  Indoor  Life  189 

Lamps  at  first  were  like  those  of  the  old  Roman 
days — shallow  dishes  with  a  spout — but  after- 
ward became  very  elaborate,  and  ordinarily  they 
were  used  without  chimneys,  though  sometimes 
covered  with  glass  shades  to  keep  the  flame  from 
the  draft.  Glass  lamps  took  the  place  of  pewter 
as  that  metal  became  rare,  and  in  form  were  much 
like  the  lamps  to-day.  When  they  used  whale 
oil  they  did  not  need  chimneys  to  make  them 
burn  clear. 

Getting  a  light  was  by  no  means  a  simple 
matter  until  very  late  in  the  country's  history. 
The  fire  once  started  was  carefully  kept  alive  by 
being  buried  deep  in  the  ashes,  so  as  to  burn 
slowly.  If  it  went  out  there  might  be  no  way 
to  light  it  again  except  by  sending  to  neighbors 
for  a  coal  of  fire,  which  was  brought  back  in 
ashes  on  a  shovel,  in  a  pan,  or  on  a  bit  of  bark. 
This,  in  some  places,  was  easier  than  to  strike  a 
light  with  flint  and  steel,  but  nearly  all  pioneers 
had  these  together  with  a  box  of  tinder,  which 
was  made  of  charred  linen,  sometimes  rubbed 
with  gunpowder,  or  was  a  bit  of  dry  vegetable 
fibre,  moss,  or  a  fungus.  The  Indians  used  a 
tinder  made  of  a  fungus  on  the  birch  trees,  and 
such  secrets  as  these  the  colonists  learned  from 
them.  After  the  fire  was  once  struck,  sticks 


igo         When  America  Was  New 

dipped  in  sulphur  were  held  against  it,  and  this 
gave  the  flame.  The  first  friction  matches,  even 
in  their  expensive  form,  were  not  known  until 
the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  about 
1827,  and,  according  to  Mrs.  Earle,  eighty-four 
of  them  cost  twenty-five  cents. 

For  warmth  the  chief  dependence  was  the 
kitchen  fireplace,  so  big  that  it  was  really  a 
room  in  itself  and  was  supplied  with  logs  that 
sometimes  had  to  be  drawn  in  by  a  horse.  Within 
the  chimney-place  benches  were  sometimes  put. 
Over  the  big  log-fire  cooking  was  done  by  hang- 
ing kettles  and  pots  upon  long  chains.  Within 
the  bricks  that  enclosed  the  front  of  the  fireplace 
were  ovens  that  could  be  heated  by  being  filled 
with  live  coals.  After  these  had  remained  long 
enough  to  give  a  hot  oven,  they  were  drawn  out, 
the  pans  put  in,  and  the  door  closed,  so  that  the 
cooking  was  done  by  the  heat  retained  in  the 
bricks. 

The  big  kettles  were  rather  expensive,  and 
formed  part  of  the  housewife's  treasures. 

A  device  much  valued  for  baking  was  the  so- 
called  "  Dutch  oven."  This  was  a  device  of 
sheet  iron  or  tin,  open  on  one  side,  and  could  be 
stood  so  as  to  face  the  fire.  Another  contrivance 
sometimes  called  a  Dutch  oven  was  a  big  kettle 


The  Indoor  Life  191 

with  long  legs  to  keep  it  out  of  the  deep  ashes, 
and  having  a  cover  like  a  deep  pan.  It  was  put 
among  the  coals  and  coals  were  also  heaped  on 
top  of  the  hollow  cover,  so  that  it  was  heated 
above  and  below.  In  such  a  kettle  a  great  heat 
could  be  kept  up  for  a  long  time. 

Almost  all  the  cooking  things  had  to  have 
long  handles,  for  the  heat  of  the  fires  kept  the 
cook  at  a  distance.  For  roasting  meat  various 
methods  were  used,  the  simplest  being  to  hang 
it  from  a  string  so  that  it  could  be  turned  con- 
stantly before  the  flames.  An  improvement  was 
the  "  roasting-jack,"  which  was  a  chain  that  some- 
times had  clockwork  to  keep  the  meat  turning. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  kitchen  fire  was  the 
main  reliance  for  heating,  and  it  can  be  imagined 
how  cold  the  unheated  houses  became  in  winter. 
Old  diaries  speak  of  the  ink  freezing  upon  the 
pens  of  their  writers.  The  bedrooms  were  icy, 
and  could  not  have  been  slept  in  except  for  the 
beds,  which  had  heavy  curtains,  warm  coverings, 
and  were  sometimes  heated  by  means  of  the 
warming-pan,  a  deep  pan  for  containing  hot 
coals  and  having  a  long  handle  by  which  it 
could  be  thrust  under  the  coverings  to  remove 
the  icy  chill. 


CHAPTER  IX 

WHAT  THE  COLONISTS  KNEW  AND 
THOUGHT 

WHEN  we  are  told  that  the  men  who 
came  with  their  families  to  America 
went  out  from  England  soon  after  the 
great  age  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  we  must  not  be 
led  by  that  to  think  that  these  men  had  anything 
of  the  brightness  of  mind  and  the  wide,  if  curi- 
ous, learning,  that  belonged  to  the  upper  classes, 
to  such  men  as  Francis  Bacon,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
Sir  Francis  Drake,  and  Lord  Burleigh,  who  was 
for  so  many  years  the  Queen's  most  trusted  ad- 
viser, or  even  the  knowledge  that  went  to  make 
the  many  lesser  dramatists  of  the  time. 

These  men  had  learning,  wisdom,  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  world,  but,  for  the  most  part,  the 
colonists  came  from  the  lower  classes.  Even 
where  they  called  themselves  gentlemen,  they 
were  not  educated,  or  readers,  who  knew  much 
about  the  world  or  the  learning  of  the  time. 
They  were,  it  is  true,  familiar  with  such  wisdom 
of  the  day  as  came  into  popular  speech.  They 
knew  the  current  sayings  and  proverbs,  the 
192 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         193 

stories  and  ballads  of  the  time,  and,  if  they  came 
from  cities,  they  had  general  ideas  about  such 
subjects  as  came  up  in  general  conversation.  In 
this  way  they  had  learned  something  of  the  great 
voyages  of  the  time,  something  of  the  wealth 
that  was  taken  by  Spain  out  of  the  mines  of 
South  America  and  the  West  Indies,  something 
of  the  great  countries  of  Asia,  but  only  by  hear- 
say, and  usually  through  the  wonder  tales  of 
travelers. 

One  thing,  as  Edward  Eggleston  reminds  us, 
in  which  nearly  all  the  men  of  the  time,  both 
learned  and  ignorant,  had  some  knowledge  and 
more  superstition,  was  astronomy.  Upon  this 
subject  nearly  all  the  world  of  the  day  still  be- 
lieved in  what  is  known  as  the  "  system  of 
Ptolemy,"  that  is,  they  thought  that  the  whole 
universe  that  they  could  see  revolved  about  this 
world  as  a  centre.  The  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars, 
were  fixed  in  great  crystal  globes  or  spheres,  one 
within  another,  and  turning  in  various  ways  about 
the  central  earth  so  as  to  carry  with  them  the 
heavenly  bodies,  set  in  them  like  jewels  in  a  ring. 

It  is  true  that  learned  men  here  and  there  had 
begun  to  doubt  this  system,  which  had  come 
down  for  many  ages  ;  and  these  men  had  begun 
to  believe  the  system  of  Copernicus,  which  was 


194         When  America  Was  New 

much  nearer  the  truth  in  making  the  sun  the 
centre  of  our  system,  and  in  understanding  that 
many  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  came 
from  the  spinning  of  the  earth. 

But  besides  the  mistaken  idea  about  the  make- 
up of  the  universe,  there  were  fixed  in  the  popu- 
lar mind  many  beliefs  that  had  come  from  the 
old  astrologists — those  men  who  thought  that  all 
human  affairs  were  governed  and  ruled  by  the 
motion  of  the  sun,  moon,  planets,  and  stars.  It 
is  hard  for  us  to  understand  how  general  this  be- 
lief was.  It  was  accepted  by  men  of  great  abil- 
ity who  kept  in  their  employ  private  astrologers 
who  let  them  know  whether  or  not  any  under- 
taking would  be  entered  upon  with  any  chance 
of  success  more  at  one  time  than  at  another. 

Besides  this  special  study  of  astrology,  there 
had  come  to  be  among  the  common  people  a 
number  of  absurd  notions  connected  with  it,  and 
the  ruling  power  of  the  heavenly  bodies  was 
borne  in  mind  in  most  of  their  occupations. 
Certain  things  like  planting  of  seeds,  must  be 
done  at  the  full  moon,  certain  others  like  prun- 
ing at  the  waning  of  the  moon ;  some  days  were 
lucky  on  account  of  the  appearance  of  the 
heavens,  and  others  for  the  same  reason  foretold 
disaster. 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         195 

Such  ideas  are  now  almost  dead,  except  for  a 
few  odd  notions  surviving  here  and  there  among 
the  ignorant,  such,  for  instance,  as  that  there  will 
not  be  a  settled  change  in  the  weather  until  there 
be  a  change  in  the  moon  ;  or  that  serious  harm 
will  come  to  one  who  sleeps  so  that  the  moon 
shines  upon  him.  But  the  beliefs  about  luck  or 
of  charms  that  survive  to-day  are  considered 
lightly  and  rather  as  a  subject  for  joking  than  as 
serious  matters.  But  all  during  colonial  times 
these  ideas  largely  ruled  men's  affairs. 

Among  these  notions  those  in  regard  to 
comets  were  particularly  wide-spread.  It  was  be- 
lieved that  the  appearance  of  comets  in  the  sky 
always  betokened  some  great  event.  Whether 
this  event  were  fortunate  or  otherwise  depended 
upon  men's  ideas  of  what  was  signified  by  the 
shape  of  the  comet  during  its  appearance. 

Another  idea  that  was  most  wide-spread  and 
faithfully  believed  related  to  the  origin  of  insect 
and  similar  life.  This  was  not  confined  entirely 
to  ignorant  people,  though  most  general  among 
them.  It  would  be  difficult  to  give  examples  of 
all  the  various  forms  this  notion  took,  but  in 
general  it  may  be  expressed  by  saying  that 
wherever  there  was  decay  of  one  form  of  life,  it 
gave  rise  to  another.  Thus  it  was  thought  that 


196         When  America  Was  New 

bees  came  from  the  decaying  carcasses  of  ani- 
mals, and  frogs  and  insects  of  various  sorts  were 
supposed  to  be  produced  by  pond  slime  and  de- 
caying vegetable  matter. 

Such  beliefs  as  these  were  not,  of  course,  very 
important  as  affecting  men's  actions  at  the  time, 
but  they  showed  how  little  knowledge  of  the 
world  about  them  was  possessed  by  the  ordinary 
people. 

The  general  notions  of  natural  history  were  no 
less  foolish.  Even  fairly  educated  men,  for  ex- 
ample, believed  that  swallows  at  the  end  of  the 
summer  plunged  to  the  bottom  of  rivers  and 
streams  and  passed  the  winter  buried  in  the  mud. 
The  whole  subject  of  the  southerly  migration  of 
birds  was  equally  mysterious  and  gave  rise  to  a 
great  number  of  absurd  theories. 

In  attempting  to  imagine  the  nature  of  the 
powers  that  rule  our  world,  the  men  of  the  early 
colonial  times  naturally  enough  imagined  the 
powers  above  to  be  not  altogether  unlike  the 
earthly  powers  they  had  known ;  and  since  the 
society  which  they  had  known  had  been  organ- 
ized by  a  strict  division  into  classes  in  which  all 
people  were  divided  into  an  aristocracy  and  in- 
ferior orders,  the  colonists  came  to  look  upon  the 
heavenly  powers  as  divided  in  the  same  way. 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         197 

They  thought  of  the  Creator  as  being  a  king,  or 
great  ruler,  such  as  they  had  seen  at  the  head  of 
the  states  from  which  they  had  come.  And  as 
the  earthly  kings  were  attended  by  throngs  of 
courtiers,  so  it  was  believed  that  the  Creator  had 
his  great  followings  of  inferior  beings  who  yet 
were  superior  to  man  and  who  held  toward  him 
the  same  relation  that  the  courtiers  held  toward 
their  king. 

Nor  was  it  the  heavenly  powers  alone  that 
were  considered  to  be  divided  thus.  The  great 
Adversary,  Satan,  was  likewise  believed  to  be, 
in  a  way,  the  monarch  of  an  enormous  kingdom 
made  up  of  inferior  devils  and  demons  who 
served  in  his  train  and  were  ready  to  carry  out 
his  mischief-making  schemes. 

This  belief  as  regards  the  devil  and  his  minis- 
ters led  to  real  evils,  for  it  is  to  this  belief  that  we 
must  trace  the  terrible  witchcraft  delusion  which 
was  once  so  widely  extended  in  England  and 
which  came  across  the  sea  to  the  colonies  and 
was  the  cause  of  cruelties  almost  innumerable. 

Unable  to  account  for  the  strange  illnesses, 
mental  or  physical,  that  occasionally  seize  upon 
mankind,  or  the  occasional  diseases  that  affected 
their  animals,  it  was  very  natural  for  the  believ- 
ers in  the  great  power  of  Satan  and  his  inferior 


198         When  America  Was  New 

demons  to  lay  the  evil  doings  to  these  ministers 
of  evil  and  to  human  beings  under  their  control. 

It  is  impossible  to  give  any  idea  of  the  many 
varied  shapes  which  the  witchcraft  delusion  took, 
but  it  may  be  said,  in  general,  that  the  process 
in  seeking  out  a  cause  for  ailing  children,  a 
series  of  disasters,  or,  in  short,  any  unexplained 
series  of  accidents,  particularly  if  they  affected  a 
single  person,  was  to  select  some  victim,  perhaps 
oftenest  an  ill-natured  old  woman  who  may  have 
spoken  hastily  and  malevolently  against  a  neigh- 
bor, and  then  to  accuse  the  poor  creature  of 
witchcraft. 

Against  such  a  charge,  defense  was  almost  im- 
possible, and  those  who  would  have  been  inclined 
to  defend  the  victim  were  in  many  cases  fright- 
ened away  by  the  fear  of  being  involved  in  her 
fate.  The  leading  men  of  the  communities,  the 
clergymen,  the  magistrates,  the  rulers,  were,  for 
the  most  part  affected  by  the  same  superstition  as 
the  most  ignorant  of  their  people.  And  even 
where  they  were  in  doubt  it  was  dangerous  for 
them  to  express  their  doubt  for  fear  of  being  ac- 
cused of  impiety. 

The  argument  that  was  used  to  prove  witch- 
craft was  the  same  that  supported  the  institutions 
for  which  men  had  the  most  reverence.  The  be- 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         199 

lievers  in  the  delusion  would  point  triumphantly 
to  the  mention  of  witches  in  the  Bible,  citing  the 
case  of  Saul's  visit  to  the  witch  of  Endor  and 
quoting  the  text  of  the  Old  Testament  that  de- 
clares "  Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live." 

In  the  face  of  such  authorities,  and  at  a  time 
when  no  one  dared,  for  fear  of  the  awful  charge 
of  heresy,  to  dispute  what  seemed  to  be  plainly 
asserted  by  any  of  the  countless  texts  that  might 
be  quoted  from  the  Scriptures,  there  was  no  pos- 
sibility of  fighting  against  the  universal  sentiment 
back  of  the  witchcraft  persecutions.  To  deny 
that  there  were  witches,  to  claim  that  the  ac- 
cused ought  not  be  put  to  death,  was  to  lay  one's 
self  open  to  the  charge  not  only  of  heresy,  but 
even  of  treason  both  to  Church  and  to  State. 
The  King  and  all  the  constituted  authorities 
claimed  power  over  their  fellows  by  virtue  of 
Scriptural  authority.  The  church  itself,  which, 
in  those  days  was  second  only  to  the  King,  if 
even  to  him,  likewise  rested  upon  the  same 
Scriptural  foundation.  Such  being  the  case,  it 
was  impossible  in  the  face  of  public  sentiment  to 
rescue  from  trial  the  poor  creatures  suspected  of 
witchcraft,  and  in  the  trials  themselves  there  was 
little  chance  of  escape. 

It  is  well  known  to  lawyers  and  others  who 


2oo         When  America  Was  New 

have  studied  the  history  of  criminal  law,  that  the 
persons  accused  of  crimes,  particularly  after  the 
cruelties  of  torture,  or  when  weakened  and 
driven  half  crazy  by  the  severities  of  the  old 
prisons,  and  confronted  by  a  crowd  of  accusers 
all  of  whom  had  lost  their  feelings  of  kindly 
humanity  through  their  superstitious  fear — are 
really  out  of  their  minds.  It  is  impossible  to 
foretell  what  lies  or  absurdities  such  persons  will 
say.  Many  of  the  law  books  contain  cases,  par- 
ticularly in  these  witch-trials,  where  the  poor 
creatures  driven  out  of  their  senses,  have  made 
long  and  elaborate  confessions  which  we  now 
know  must  have  been  no  more  than  nightmare 
dreams  of  their  tortured  brains. 

The  only  thing  that  put  an  end  to  this  terrible 
state  of  affairs  was  the  fright  of  the  more  sensible 
members  of  the  community  at  the  enormous 
growth  of  the  delusion.  It  soon  came  to  be 
impossible  to  say  who  would  be  free  of  accusa- 
tions of  witchcraft.  No  one  was  safe,  even  if  of 
the  highest  standing  and  the  best  character.  It 
was  felt  that  the  horrible  trials  and  executions 
must  be  stopped,  and  to  this  feeling  alone  is  due 
the  end  of  the  witchcraft  delusions. 

While  no  other  superstition  resulted  in  so 
much  evil,  yet  there  were  many  quite  as  difficult 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         20 1 

for  us  to  understand  as  the  belief  in  witches. 
There  was  thought  to  be  a  whole  train  of  sprites, 
demons,  hobgoblins,  and  similar  creatures,  whose 
existence  was  not  doubted  by  the  ignorant  and 
who  made  many  unhappy  people  miserable  by 
their  imagined  doings.  The  belief,  for  example, 
in  haunted  houses  was  a  natural  result  of  this 
feeling  that  the  air  was  full  of  evil  spirits  and  the 
ghosts  of  the  departed.  Those  who  were 
mentally  lacking  were  believed  to  be  possessed  by 
devils,  and  from  the  knots  in  the  tangled  manes 
of  horses  to  the  blighting  of  .a  crop  of  grain,  the 
doings  of  these  enemies  of  mankind  were  be- 
lieved to  be  endless.  In  many  cases  they  were 
thought  to  be  the  causes  of  disease,  and  of 
death. 

The  amount  of  medical  knowledge  in  England 
during  the  colonial  time  was  no  guide  to  the 
amount  of  knowledge  possessed  by  those  who 
cared  for  the  sick  in  America.  There  were 
virtually  no  periodicals,  there  was  no  body  of 
educated  men,  and  no  medical  books,  that  could 
give  the  colonial  practicer  of  medicine  any  true 
knowledge  of  the  healing  art. 

The  men  who  in  the  absence  of  educated 
doctors  were  called  upon  to  cure  wounds,  to  heal 
fractures,  and  to  care  for  the  disabled  generally, 


2O2         When  America  Was  New 

usually  were  guided  by  a  few  old- wives'  notions 
that  had  been  handed  down  for  nobody  knows 
how  many  ages.  Really  educated  doctors  can 
hardly  be  said  to  have  existed  in  the  colonies,  not 
because  such  men  would  not  have  found  plenty 
to  do,  but  because  men  who  were  thus  skilled  in 
their  profession  were  far  from  plenty  in  the  home 
country,  and  there  was  little  to  tempt  them 
abroad.  Consequently,  those  who  practiced 
physic  were  the  mothers  of  families,  particularly 
the  wives  of  owners  of  large  estates,  who,  as  in 
England,  were  expected  to  know  the  use  of  a  few 
drugs,  to  be  skilful  in  caring  for  small  injuries, 
and  to  be  handy  in  the  sick-room ;  next  in  im- 
portance to  those  were  the  barbers  who  had  for 
many  years  been  accustomed  as  part  of  their 
business  to  "  let  blood  "  that  is,  to  bleed  patients 
in  order  to  cure  them  of  fevers  and  a  dozen  other 
ailments  that  were  supposed  to  come  from  the 
state  of  the  humors  of  the  body  ;  and,  third,  may 
be  reckoned  the  clergymen,  the  teachers,  and 
other  educated  men. 

The  common  belief  of  the  time  about  these 
humors  of  the  bodies  was  that  irregularities  or  ill- 
nesses and  diseases  came  from  there  being  too 
much  or  too  little  of  one  of"  the  four  humors  " 
of  the  body.  As  Eggleston  gives  them,  "  these 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         203 

four  humors  were  known  as  bile,  or  choler,  blood, 
melancholy,  or  black,  bile,  and  phlegm." 

It  was  easy  to  suppose  that  the  simplest  way 
of  changing  the  amount  of  any  one  of  these 
humors  was  to  open  a  vein  and  let  a  little  blood 
flow.  And  this  was  done  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  whether  the  person  were  well  or  ill,  under 
a  general  idea  that  bleeding  now  and  then  was  a 
good  thing,  and  that  in  the  case  of  the  sick  it 
must  be  beneficial.  Even  the  well  people  were 
bled  now  and  then  to  keep  them  in  health. 

Besides  the  women  and  the  barbers,  and  the 
others  we  have  mentioned,  there  were  people 
called  "  bone-setters  " — men  who  had  acquired, 
either  by  experience  or  by  inheritance,  some 
knowledge  of  the  art  of  caring  for  broken  bones, 
or  putting  dislocations  in  place.  These  men  be- 
ing called  upon  in  such  cases,  naturally  came  to 
consider  themselves  doctors,  and  often  added  to 
their  practice  some  knowledge  of  the  properties 
of  common  plants  or  gained  from  the  Indians 
some  hints  in  the  use  of  herbs. 

In  those  days  in  the  absence  of  any  science 
of  medicine,  the  common  people  would  go  with 
their  troubles  to  anybody  supposed  to  be  wiser 
than  his  fellows  and  ask  for  advice,  simply  for  the 
lack  of  knowing  what  better  to  do.  In  this  way 


204         When  America  Was  New 

clergymen  especially  were  often  called  upon  to 
treat  the  sick,  and  they  also  found  themselves 
bound  to  learn  something  about  the  useful  house- 
hold remedies  and  the  commoner  drugs. 

One  curious  notion  entirely  unknown  to  most 
of  us  to-day  ruled  almost  universally  in  the 
medicine  of  two  or  three  centuries  ago.  This 
notion  was  based  upon  two  general  ideas.  The 
first  was  that  when  a  person  was  sick,  it  was  impos- 
sible he  should  get  well  unless  some  cure  was  ap- 
plied. This  doctrine  is  one  that  is  only  too  much 
believed  in  down  to  the  present  time,  and  the 
difference  between  their  notion  and  ours  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  they  believed  that  it  was  a  marvel 
when  a  patient  recovered  from  an  illness  without 
the  help  of  some  strange  remedy,  while  we  know 
that  the  best  doctors  and  nurses  can  in  most 
cases  do  no  more  than  see  that  nature  is  not  in- 
terfered with  and  that  the  strength  and  spirits  of 
the  patient  are  kept  up.  The  people  of  colonial 
times  looked  upon  the  doctor  or  his  American 
substitute  as  something  of  a  magician  who 
worked  wonders  by  means  of  the  secret  magical 
properties  of  various  substances  of  which  he 
held  the  knowledge. 

The  second  notion  that  ruled  the  medical 
science  of  the  time  was  the  doctrine  of  "  signa- 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         205 

tures."  This  proceeded  from  the  belief  that  for 
every  disease  there  was  a  remedy  which  had 
been  created  for  the  purpose  of  curing  that 
trouble.  The  doctrine  of  signatures  asserted 
that  there  was  connected  with  the  plant  or  other 
remedy  a  sign  by  which  we  might  know  what 
things  were  adapted  to  the  curing  of  certain  dis- 
orders. 

A  common  example  that  every  one  will  appre- 
ciate is  found  in  the  plant  "  hepatica."  In  the 
old  days,  the  fact  that  the  leaf  of  the  hepatica 
was  believed  in  its  shape  to  resemble  the  liver, 
and  that  the  color  of  the  under  side  of  the  leaf 
is  also  like  that  of  the  liver,  would  have  been 
enough  to  establish  its  claim  to  be  considered  a 
cure  for  liver  troubles.  Whether  such  an  herb 
was  administered  pounded  in  water,  boiled  in 
vinegar,  stewed  in  wine,  or  applied  as -a  poultice, 
would  depend  entirely  upon  whatever  notion 
happened  to  hit  the  mind  of  the  medical  men. 
This  resemblance  between  the  plant  and  the  liver 
was  taken  as  the  plant's  "  signature,"  or  sign  as 
to  what  it  was  created  for — the  notion  being  that 
everything  must  have  been  created  for  some 
purpose,  and  usually  for  some  purpose  connected 
with  the  good  of  mankind. 

Of  course  it  is  true  that  repeated  trials  of  dif 


206         When  America  Was  New 

ferent  herbs  through  all  the  course  of  the  ages 
had  taught  men  something,  and  even  in  these 
times  some  of  the  best  known  remedies  still  in 
use  to-day  were  of  recognized  value.  But,  gen- 
erally speaking,  much  more  dependence  was  to 
be  placed  upon  the  notion  of  "  humors  "  (which, 
again  to  quote  a  statement  made  by  Eggleston, 
might  go  wrong  in  "  eighty  thousand  ways  "),  and 
in  the  magical  doctrine  of  signatures  than  even 
in  carefully  collected  trials  of  the  various  drugs. 

There  were  at  that  time,  of  course,  a  few 
skilled  doctors,  even  in  the  colonies,  but  these 
men  were  greatly  hindered  and  confused  by  the 
claims  of  rival  schools  of  medicine.  There  was, 
one  might  almost  say,  no  true  science  at  all, 
either  of  chemistry  or  of  medicine,  and  remedies 
of  a  purely  magical  nature  were  held  in  the  same 
esteem  as  those  that  really  had  a  claim  to  use- 
fulness. In  the  absence  of  any  real  knowledge 
of  the  body  or  how  it  was  nourished,  of  the  cir- 
culation of  the  blood  and  of  the  part  played  by 
the  different  organs,  there  could  be  no  true 
science  of  medicine  built  up  by  the  work  of 
practitioners. 

Though  we  have  given  merely  one  instance  of 
the  complicated  idea  of  signatures,  it  was  really 
a  great  and  elaborate  system  which  had  to  do 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         207 

with  the  influence  of  the  planets  upon  minerals 
and  plants,  and  also  with  a  mysterious  something 
which  they  called  "  sympathy,"  which  (Eggleston 
suggests)  may  have  been  taken  from  some  strange 
notion  of  the  magical  power  of  magnets. 

Together  with  the  strange  properties  of  plants, 
there  was  a  strong  belief  in  the  good  effect  of 
prayers  or  magical  sentences  inscribed  upon 
scraps  of  parchment  and  often  carried  about  to 
ward  off  evils.  It  is  said,  in  a  note  to  Chapter 
II  of  Eggleston's  "  Transit  of  Civilization,"  that 
"  toothache  was  cured,  in  Boston,  by  giving  a 
sealed  piece  of  paper  on  which  was  written  a 
prayer,  beginning,  '  In  the  name  of  the  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  preserve  thy  servant/ 
— and  so  on." 

The  strange  warty  appearance  of  a  toad's  back 
and  the  common  belief  that  toads  were  poison- 
ous, was  enough  to  convince  people  of  the  time 
that  if  toads  were  ground  up  and  made  into  a 
powder,  this  powder  would  serve  as  a  cure  for 
eruptions  of  the  skin  and  also  would  be  an  anti- 
dote against  poisons. 

It  can  easily  be  seen  that  in  medicine  practiced 
upon  such  principles  as  these  there  is  no  end  to 
the  strange  fancies  that  may  give  rise  to  belief  in 
curious  remedies. 


208         When  America  Was  New 

This  magical  theory  of  medicine  was  even  car- 
ried so  far  that  it  was  believed  a  wound  might  be 
cured  by  applying  a  certain  ointment,  made  of 
no  matter  what,  to  the  blade  of  the  sword  or 
dagger  that  had  done  the  injury.  And  in  a  simi- 
lar way  sometimes  attempts  were  made  to  remedy 
a  bleeding  by  sprinkling  some  other  magical 
powder  upon  the  blood  itself  rather  than  on  the 
wound.  In  this  case  the  cure  was  believed  to  be 
brought  about  by  "  magnetism,"  "  a  term,"  says 
Eggleston,  "  that  has  covered  more  ignorance 
than  any  other  ever  invented." 

In  order  to  show  the  change  in  opinions,  we 
quote  from  a  recent  medical  paper  opinions  of 
some  eminent  medical  men. 

From  Sir  John  Forbes,  who  was  physician  to 
Queen  Victoria,  comes  the  statement :  "  Some 
patients  get  well  with  the  aid  of  medicine,  some 
without  it,  and  still  more  in  spite  of  it."  From 
Dr.  James  Johnston,  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society 
of  Great  Britain,  come  these  words :  "  I  declare 
as  my  honest  conviction,  based  upon  long  expe- 
rience and  reflection,  that  if  there  was  not  a  sin- 
gle physician  or  surgeon,  chemist,  apothecary, 
druggist  or  drug,  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  there 
would  be  less  sickness,  less  mortality,  than  now 
prevail."  From  another  Fellow  of  the  Royal 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         209 

Society,  Francis  Galton,  we  may  take  a  proverb 
(which  he  quotes  as  a  consolation  to  explorers 
who  may  have  to  go  into  countries  far  from 
medical  aid)  that  "  Though  there  is  a  great  dif- 
ference between  a  good  physician  and  a  bad  one, 
there  is  very  little  between  a  good  one  and  none 
at  all." 

It  may  be  that  these  modern  authorities  are 
only  trying  to  prevent  too  great  a  reliance  upon 
medicine  or  distrust  of  nature ;  but  their  opinions 
at  least  will  show  what  a  complete  change  of 
opinion  has  taken  place  between  the  days  of  the 
colonists  and  our  own  times. 

Among  the  curious  drugs  whose  powers  were 
believed  in  there  is  none  to  which  the  people  of 
these  days  of  the  seventeenth  century  gave  more 
importance  than  the  so-called  "  potable  gold," 
which  means  "  drinkable  gold."  Believing  that 
in  astrology  the  sun  was  the  most  powerful  or 
potent  of  all  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  believing 
also  that  there  was  the  greatest  sympathy  between 
the  sun  and  the  metal  astrologers  thought  be- 
longed to  it — gold,  they  reached  the  wise  con- 
clusion that  if  gold  could  be  made  to  serve  as  a 
drug,  its  effect  as  a  curer  of  all  ills  must  exceed 
that  of  any  other  remedy. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  run  over  even  a  list 


2lo         When  America  Was  New 

of  the  mo.re  important  things  that  were  thought 
to  be  curative  in  effect.  It  is  like  reading  ex- 
tracts from  some  pretended  magician's  book  in 
an  old  fairy  tale.  For  instance,  there  is  the 
"  bezoar-stone,"  which  was  supposed  to  be  an 
antidote  for  all  sorts  of  poisons  and  was  believed 
to  be  found  in  the  inside  of  a  wild  goat  of  the 
East. 

As  no  one  knew  exactly  what  the  bezoar  stone 
was  like,  and  as  different  ones  were  said  to  differ 
in  size,  shape,  and  color,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  al- 
most any  odd  stone  could  be  palmed  off  upon  the 
ignorant  as  a  wonderful  remedy. 

Like  the  bezoar  stone,  people  regarded  ser- 
pents' flesh  as  being  excellent  against  poison ; 
and,  indeed,  remedies  of  some  kind  were  made 
from  nearly  every  part  of  every  animal.  Some 
of  these  drugs  were  made  of  substances  even  to 
read  of  which  is  disgusting.  Perhaps  one  of  the 
least  unpleasant  was  a  remedy  for  fever,  which 
consisted  in  a  dead  spider  shut  into  a  nutshell  and 
worn  about  the  neck  against  the  skin. 

From  the  Indians  was  derived  a  great  deal  of 
nonsensical  medical  practice,  together  with  a  few 
really  valuable  hints  ;  and  since  it  was  natural  in 
the  colonists  to  believe  that  the  Indians  knowing 
nature  so  well,  were  likely  to  know  the  value  and 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         21 1 

the  use  of  the  unknown  plants  which  were  found 
in  the  New  World,  it  soon  became  the  custom 
for  quacks  and  pretenders  to  claim  that  they  had 
learned  most  valuable  medical  secrets  from  the 
Indians.  Thus  grew  up  a  form  of  medicine  prac- 
ticed by  men  who  called  themselves  "  Indian  doc- 
tors "  or  "  botanical  doctors." 

Even  after  some  time  had  elapsed  in  the  colo- 
nies there  was  no  improvement  in  its  doctoring. 
At  first,  when  colonists  were  sent  over,  it  was 
usual  to  send  with  them  at  least  one  man  who 
had  some  knowledge  of  medicine ;  and  it  became 
the  custom  for  these  men  to  train  one  or  two  as- 
sistants while  in  the  New  World.  But  after  the 
colonists  began  to  come  in  smaller  parties,  of 
their  own  motion,  there  was  no  longer  a  sufficient 
supply  of  skilled  doctors  from  the  home  country, 
and  people,  as  the  colonists  became  more  numer- 
ous, were  compelled  to  rely  upon  the  help  that 
could  be  given  by  the  pupils  of  the  first  medical 
men,  and  naturally  enough,  the  training  of  these 
younger  men  had  been  very  imperfect.  The 
self-taught  quacks  and  pretenders  to  medicine 
could  not  have  had  any  good  training,  and  yet 
they  were  bound  to  engage  in  active  practice, 
owing  to  the  great  prevalence'  of.  accidents  and 
illnesses  in  a  people  living  under  new  condi- 


212         When  America  Was  New 

tions  and  exposed  to  the  dangers  of  the  wilder- 
ness. 

In  judging  the  acts  of  people  of  colonial  times 
it  is  not  always  fair  to  judge  them  as  if  we  could 
understand  their  feelings.  In  our  own  days  we 
have  learned  to  trust  much  more  in  our  reason 
and  common  sense  than  they  ever  thought  of 
doing.  Their  first  idea  when  in  difficulty  was  to 
find  some  one  to  obey. 

In  our  own  day  we  read,  we  question,  and  we 
talk  over  among  ourselves,  everything  that  is 
done.  If  we  do  not  approve  of  the  doings  of 
our  officers  and  magistrates,  we  blame  them  be- 
cause their  ideas  do  not  agree  with  what  we 
think  is  right  or  just ;  but  in  the  colonial  times 
people  did  not  often  claim  the  right  to  judge 
their  betters. 

There  seems  to  be  little  trace  in  the  early  days 
of  the  colonies  of  any  love  for  the  beautiful  in 
nature.  Few  of  the  early  settlers  seem  to  have 
thought  of  the  ocean,  the  shores,  the  great  for- 
ests, and  the  meadows,  as  interesting  or  beautiful 
things.  They  were  simply  rough  and  trouble- 
some surroundings  to  be  conquered  and  made 
tame  and  civilized. 

We  find  little  trace  of  any  care  for  nature, 
even  in  the  writings  of  poets ;  but  this  may  pos- 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         213 

sibly  have  come  from  the  fashion  of  the  time, 
since  a  poet  would  not  be  likely  to  write  what 
would  be  looked  upon  as  foolish  by  those  who 
were  to  read  his  lines.  The  age  that  had  pro- 
duced the  Elizabethan  poets  could  not  have  been 
lacking  in  men  or  women  able  to  see  the  beauties 
of  nature,  but  if  there  were  a  few  such,  the  fact 
that  they  have  left  no  trace  and  that  they  are 
never  appealed  to  by  the  writers  of  the  time, 
shows  that  most  of  the  settlers  and  early  colo- 
nists could  have  taken  no  very  strong  interest  in 
the  wonders  and  beauties  of  the  New  World  to 
which  they  had  come  across  the  seas. 

From  the  way  in  which  the  colonists  were 
founded,  North  and  South,  it  came  about  that 
the  feeling  toward  the  King  and  ruling  powers 
in  England  was  different  in  the  two  sections. 
At  the  South  there  was  among  the  men  of  the 
higher  classes  much  loyalty  to  the  Crown,  and 
even  when  for  a  time  there  was  hard  feeling 
toward  their  governors,  this  loyalty  was  hardly 
shaken.  We  have  seen  already  that  at  the  time 
of  the  Commonwealth  in  England  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  send  a  fleet  over  to  compel  obe- 
dience to  Cromwell's  government. 

At  the  North  the  feeling  was  much  less  friendly 
toward  England,  since  too  many  had  been  driven 


214         When  America  Was  New 

across  the  sea  by  harsh  treatment  at  home,  and 
they  were  less  friendly  with  the  ruling  classes 
than  the  Virginians.  The  Puritan  government 
in  England  for  this  reason  was  most  friendly  to 
the  Northern  colonies,  and  left  them  to  look 
after  themselves.  This  was  changed  again  when 
the  Stuarts  came  back  to  the  throne. 

Toward  foreign  nations  the  general  feeling  of 
the  time  was  that  all  foreigners  were  enemies, 
and  the  only  thing  that  kept  this  from  being 
universal  was  the  fellow  feeling  of  English  Prot- 
estants toward  the  Dutch  in  their  struggle  with 
Catholic  Spain,  and  with  the  French  Hugue- 
nots. The  more  distant  nations  at  that  time  were 
thought  of  only  as  enemies  to  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, as  pagans  and  infidels,  who,  as  hostile  to 
Christianity,  were  entitled  to  little  or  no  consid- 
eration at  the  hands  of  Christian  men. 

A  similar  belief  of  the  colonists  in  regard  to 
the  Indians  had  much  to  do  with  the  hatred  that 
grew  up  between  the  two  races.  The  people  of 
that  time,  with  their  idea  that  the  whole  world 
was  divided  into  two  kinds  of  nations,  or  coun- 
tries :  namely,  those  who  were  Christians  and 
therefore  were  under  the  special  care  of  God,  and 
those  who  were  pagans,  or  infidels,  and  so  might 
be  looked  upon  as  enemies  of  the  faith  and  as 


What  the  Colonists  Knew         215 

foes  to  all  that  was  good,  seemed  to  think  it  no 
harm  to  misuse  or  maltreat  the  pagans,  and  cared 
little  to  keep  faith  with  them.  Their  way  of 
putting  it  was  to  say  that  the  Indians  worshiped 
the  devil,  and  this  they  thought  was  proved  by 
the  strange  doings  of  the  Indian  medicine  men, 
the  sorcerers,  as  they  often  called  them. 

Again  and  again  in  the  books  of  the  time,  and 
in  the  letters  and  journals,  we  come  upon  the 
statement  that  the  Indians  were  wholly  wicked, 
and  were  devil-worshipers.  Thus  they  were 
classed  with  witches  as  enemies  of  mankind,  best 
put  out  of  the  way  as  soon  as  possible,  and 
entitled  to  no  kindness. 

This  feeling  on  the  part  of  many  colonists  was 
held  even  toward  the  Indian  women  and  chil- 
dren. It  is  not  meant  that  the  better  men  and 
women  in  the  colonies  were  either  so  ignorant 
or  so  cruel,  but  the  feeling  that  the  Indians  were 
vermin  was  very  general ;  indeed,  it  may  be  said 
to  have  been  the  most  general  feeling  in  the 
colonies. 


CHAPTER  X 
BOOKS,  READING  AND  EDUCATION 

IF  we  were  to  give  only  the  number  of  books 
that  were  brought  over  by  early  settlers, 
we  should  get  a  very  wrong  idea  of  the 
amount  of  reading  and  literature  in  the  colonies. 
The  libraries  of  the  time  were  made  up  very 
largely  of  long  and  dull  discussions  upon  relig- 
ious matters.  Besides  Bibles  and  Prayer-Books, 
there  were  a  whole  class  of  works  meant  to  teach 
the  living  of  a  pious  life,  and  these  were  spun  out 
into  dull  and  endless  discussions  of  the  duties  of 
the  Christian  in  every  possible  circumstance  of 
daily  life. 

The  great  plenty  of  works  of  this  character 
may  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  in  those  days 
nearly  every  form  of  education  was  devoted  to  a 
religious  purpose. 

Gradually  to  colonial  libraries  were  added 
books  of  general  information,  those  that  told 
farmers  how  to  manage  their  land  and  crops,  and 
treatises  on  various  useful  arts,  and  it  was  still 
later  before  we  find  anything  in  which  we  should 
216 


Books,  Reading  and  Education     217 

take  the  slightest  pleasure  as  books  for  reading. 
The  masterpieces  of  Elizabethan  literature,  such 
as  the  works  of  Shakespeare  or  Bacon  or  Spenser, 
together  with  the  EsSays  of  Montaigne  and  books 
of  this  character,  did  not  become  at  all  common 
in  America  until  after  the  Restoration  in  Eng- 
land had  made  people  willing  to  read  something 
besides  the  heavy  books  on  the  practice  of  piety 
and  the  great  volumes  of  sermons  on  disputed 
points  of  theology. 

The  first  printing-press  in  America  was  five 
years  in  the  Virginia  Colony  before  any  one 
came  who  was  able  to  use  it.  A  practical  printer 
came  over  in  1620,  but  would  print  only  what  he 
liked,  making  a  great  deal  of  his  importance. 
So  a  year  or  so  later  another  was  brought  over 
and  the  first  one  was  sold  to  pay  his  own  debts, 
working  as  a  hand  on  a  plantation  until  his 
death.  The  second  printer's  work  included  only 
notices  of  the  sailing  of  ships,  the  governor's  or- 
ders, price-lists,  and  lists  of  servants  sent  to  the 
plantation.  It  was  not  until  a  whole  generation 
later  that  a  press  was  brought  to  New  England 
and  used  for  printing  Bible  extracts  and  mission- 
ary leaflets.  Soon  after  this  the  great  coming  of 
Puritans  to  New  England  began,  and  the  print- 
ing art  rapidly  grew  in  importance  with  the 


218         When  America  Was  New 

coming  of  these  well-to-do  and  educated  set- 
tlers. 

As  to  American  authors  in  these  early  days, 
one  might  almost  say  there  were  none.  It  is 
true  that  a  few  of  the  early  travelers,  notably 
Captain  Smith,  had  written  books  telling  what 
they  had  done  or  seen  in  the  New  World,  that  a 
few  clergymen  had  produced  for  themselves 
various  theological  works  of  which  there  were 
already  too  many,  and  that  there  had  been  a  few 
versifiers  such  as  Anne  Bradstreet,  who  dared  in 
a  timid  way  to  try  her  powers  as  a  poet  and  be- 
came known  as  the  "  Tenth  Muse  lately  sprung 
up  in  America." 

In  running  over  the  books  called  American 
between  the  time  of  John  Smith's  account  of  his 
adventures  and  the  time  of  Cotton  Mather,  about 
the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  we  find  that 
almost  every  title  might  well  be  that  of  a  sermon, 
the  few  exceptions  being  the  books  of  travels  of 
which  we  have  spoken  and  some  discussion  of 
the  rights  of  men  under  the  laws.  The  poets 
may  almost  be  numbered  upon  the  fingers  of  one 
hand.  Among  them  the  first  was  Nathaniel 
Ward,  author  of  "  The  Simple  Cobbler  of  Aga- 
wam  "  ;  then  comes  Anne  Bradstreet,  daughter 
of  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  who  is  fol- 


Books,  Reading  and  Education     219 

lowed  by  Michael  Wigglesworth,  author  of  a 
most  terrible  production  that  seemed  to  have 
been  known  throughout  New  England  and  was 
enough  in  itself  to  account  for  almost  any  amount 
of  religious  unhappiness.  This  poem  was  known 
as  "  The  Day  of  Doom,"  being  a  poetical  de- 
scription of  the  great  and  last  judgment,  and  of 
course  showed  its  greatest  power  in  depicting  the 
awful  tortures  of  those  who  were  condemned. 
For  an  example  of  this  cheerful  poem,  here  are  a 
few  lines  addressed  to  the  babes  dying  in  in- 
fancy, and  so  condemned  because  of  "  Adam's 
fall": 

"  You  sinners  are,  and  such  a  share  as  sinners  may  expect, 
Such  you  shall  have,  for  I  do  save  none  but  my  own  elect. 
Yet  to  compare  your  sin  with  theirs  who  liv'd  a  longer  time, 
I  do  confess  yours  is   much  less,  though  every  sin's  a  crime. 
A  crime  it  is,  therefore,  in  bliss  yoU  may  not  hope  to  dwell ; 
But  unto  you  I  shall  allow  the  easiest  room  in  hell." 
The  glorious  king  thus  answering,  they  cease,  and  plead  no 

longer, 
Their  consciences  must   need  confess  his   reasons  are   the 

stronger. 

After  running  over  so  dry  and  dull  a  list  of 
books  one  may  be  excused  for  wondering 
whether  there  was  in  the  colony  anything  but 
prigs  and  hypocrites.  At  all  events,  there  could 
not  have  been  any  opportunity  in  these  stricter 


22O         When  America  Was  New 

colonies  for  young  persons  to  know  about  the 
brighter  sides  of  literature,  whether  at  home  or  in 
school. 

Schools,  for  centuries,  had  been  entirely 
for  the  purpose  of  fitting  men  to  enter  the 
Church  or  the  religious  bodies.  A  proof  of  this 
is  seen  in  the  old  law  that  permitted  a  man  to 
escape,  when  condemned  to  the  gallows,  by 
claiming  the  right  to  be  handed  over  to  the 
Church  for  judgment  instead  of  being  judged  by 
the  courts.  To  prove  this  right  it  was  only 
necessary  for  the  criminal  to  show  that  he  could 
read,  which  was  long  accepted  as  a  sufficient 
proof  that  he  belonged  to  the  Church  people. 

After  the  closing  of  the  monasteries  and  the 
breaking  up  of  the  schools  connected  with  them, 
these  were  replaced  by  grammar  schools,  but  the 
old  notion  that  the  purpose  of  schooling  was  to 
fit  a  boy  to  study  the  Scriptures  remained  for 
many  a  year.  Consequently,  it  was  supposed 
that  most  of  those  who  cared  for  reading  were 
interested,  first,  in  the  religious  questions,  and  if 
they  knew  even  the  learned  languages  it  was 
thought  that  these  were  of  use  mainly  for  the 
purpose  of  reading  the  Scriptures  in  the  original 
or  learned  scientific  books  upon  chemistry,  as- 
trology, and  so  on.  It  was  many  a  long  year 


Books,  Reading  and  Education     221 

before  men  dared  confess  that  they  cared  for 
something  besides  serious  reading. 

The  chances  for  schooling  among  the  early  set- 
tlers defended  wholly  on  whether  any  of  the  peo- 
ple in  the  neighborhood  where  a  settler  happened 
to  be  had  the  time  and  learning  to  teach  the 
young.  To  such  home  teaching  later  was  added 
a  little  brief  schooling  in  the  winter  time,  when 
children  could  be  spared,  and  when  there  were 
a  number  of  families  together  willing  to  board 
some  young  man  or  woman  able  to  give  the  chil- 
dren their  beginnings  in  reading. 

The  first  thing  used  in  school  was  known  as 
the  "  horn-book."  This  was  a  flat  piece  of  wood 
ending  in  a  handle  and  looking  not  unlike  the 
wooden  part  of  a  square  hair-brush.  Upon  this 
was  put  a  printed  sheet  containing  the  alphabet 
and  a  few  simple  syllables  followed  by  something 
in  short  words,  such  as  a  bit  of  moral  verse,  or 
the  Lord's  prayer,  or  the  like.  Over  the  paper 
was  fastened  a  thin  sheet  of  horn,  so  that  the 
little  fingers  would  not  soil  or  tear  the  precious 
lesson-sheet. 

From  this  the  child  went  at  once  to  selections 
from  the  Psalms  and  to  the  Bible,  or  to  some 
moral  or  religious  work,  for  the  idea  that  schools 
should  teach  moral  maxims  remained  for  many 


222         When  America  Was  New 

years.  It  was  not  until  toward  the  eighteenth 
century  that  primers  were  printed  for  children, 
and  these  were  followed  by  little  books  teaching 
goodness  and  manners.  Once  the  child  cou  Id  read 
the  Psalms,  he  went  on,  if  he  was  to  be  further  ed- 
ucated, to  the  Latin  schools,  for  Latin,  as  Eggles- 
ton  puts  it,  "  was  still  the  sacred  language  of  re- 
ligion and  learning."  In  these  schools  the  main 
study  was  the  Latin  grammar — Lilly's,  the  same 
Shakespeare  is  supposed  to  have  used.  This  was 
wholly  in  Latin.  It  was  the  intention,  too,  for 
the  pupils  to  talk  only  Latin  in  school  hours,  and 
the  nickname  of  asinus,  or  donkey,  and  the  ever- 
ready  ruler  awaited  those  who  used  their  own 
language. 

Besides  his  Latin  studies,  the  boy  who  was 
supposed  to  be  well  educated  had  to  give  great  at- 
tention to  learning  to  write,  and  for  this  purpose 
was  taught  to  make  his  own  quill-pens,  to  rule  his 
own  writing-books,  and  to  do  neat  figuring.  Be- 
sides the  quill-pen  they  used  a  bit  of  lead  set  into 
a  quill  or  other  handle,  which  made  a  very  poor 
sort  of  pencil.  It  was  not  until  quite  late  in  the 
history  of  the  colonies  that  the  growth  of  busi- 
ness made  it  necessary  to  teach  boys  more  of 
their  own  language  and  something  of  arithmetic 
and  bookkeeping. 


Books,  Reading  and  Education     223 

School  children  of  the  present  day  can  have 
no  idea  of  how  every  scrap  of  paper  was  pre- 
served in  the  old  times,  when  it  was  all  made 
from  rags  instead  of  from  wood-pulp.  Many  of 
the  old  pupils  were  glad  to  do  their  exercises 
upon  smooth  shingles,  or  to  write  their  nicer  ex- 
ercises upon  odd  bits  of  paper  saved  from  account- 
books,  and  so  on. 

Children  often  went  long  distances  to  school, 
and  in  winter  the  older  ones  used  snow-shoes 
and  the  younger  were  drawn  upon  sleds.  For 
the  short  season  during  which  school  lasted  the 
hours  were  very  long,  the  tasks  hard,  and  the 
rules  strict.  Too  often  a  child  could  learn  little 
more  than  the  merest*  beginnings  of  reading 
and  writing ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was 
little  use  for  these  arts  except  in  the  larger  places. 

The  young  people  of  the  great  houses  were 
educated  in  a  few  cases  in  England,  or  perhaps 
the  greater  number  of  them  were  taught  at  home 
by  tutors  or  by  the  clergymen  of  the  parishes. 
It  was  not  at  all  uncommon  for  men  well  in- 
structed in  England  to  be  among  the  bond- 
servants who  had  come  to  Virginia  to  better  their 
condition,  and  these  men  were  able  to  give 
what  instruction  was  thought  necessary  for  the 
time.  They  taught  Latin,  usually,  Greek  now 


224         When  America  Was  New 

and  then,  and  often  gave  their  pupils  a  good 
knowledge  of  reading,  writing,  and  figures. 

The  life  of  the  colonists  required  very  steady 
industry.  There  was  constant  work  to  be  done 
indoors  and  out,  and  whenever  they  could  make 
an  amusement  or  pastime  out  of  a  piece  of  work 
they  were  very  glad  to  do  so.  Consequently,  all 
occasions  upon  which  neighbors  had  to  get  to- 
gether to  help  one  another  in  work  too  heavy  for 
any  single  household,  were,  so  far  as  possible, 
made  into  merrymakings.  The  women  had 
their  quilting-bees,  during  which  food  and  drinks 
were  served  and  they  could  talk  freely  although 
their  hands  were  busy  in  putting  the  tufts  of  cot- 
ton through  the  wadded  bed-spreads  that  in 
those  days  of  chilly  houses  were  so  plenty. 

The  building  of  a  house  could  be  carried  on  by 
a  few  workmen,  except  when  it  came  to  raising 
the  heavy  timbers  that  made  the  big  frame. 
Since  they  had  no  derricks  or  mechanical  helps, 
these  timbers  were  pulled  into  place  either  by 
human  strength  or  by  great  teams  of  oxen  using 
ropes  and  pulleys.  At  such  a  time,  the  neighbors 
who  came  to  help  were  welcomed  to  a  sort  of 
feast  and  often  stayed  for  a  dance  in  the  evening. 

At  harvest  time,  husking-bees  were  common. 
The  barns,  with  bins  piled  full  of  corn,  were 


Books,  Reading  and  Education     225 

lighted  with  dozens  of  candles  and  whale-oil 
lamps,  and  the  whole  neighborhood  gathered  to 
strip  the  husks  from  the  corn,  while  games,  jokes, 
stories,  and  skylarking  went  on.  It  was  an  old- 
time  custom  that  when  a  husker  found  a  red  ear 
of  corn  he  was  entitled  to  kiss  one  of  the  girls, 
and,  undoubtedly,  when  a  girl  found  a  red  ear 
that  also  was  an  excuse  for  kissing  her.  Other 
parts  of  harvesting  were  also  made  the  occasion 
for  parties  and  fun. 

Amusements  very  popular  in  colonial  times 
and  later  were  the  spelling-bee  and  the  singing- 
school.  Possibly  the  spelling-bee  has  not  yet 
been  forgotten,  but,  in  short,  it  consisted  of  divid- 
ing a  school  into  two  parties  who  spelled  words 
given  out  by  the  teacher,  each  one  sitting  down 
as  soon  as  he  had  missed  a  word,  until  a  single 
proud  victor  remained.  Singing-school  certainly 
needs  no  explanation,  except  to  say  that  its  chief 
charm  seemed  to  consist  in  the  need  for  the 
young  men  to  see  the  girls  home  after  it  was 
over. 

Among  the  amusements  that  were  popular  in 
New  England  may  be  named  wrestling  matches, 
leaping,  foot-races,  shooting  at  a  mark,  playing 
ball,  and,  in  winter,  sleighing.  Dancing  and 
parties,  though  frowned  upon  in  the  Puritanical 


226         When  America  Was  New 

settlement,  were  not  infrequent  in  certain  parts  of 
Connecticut  and  other  less  straight-laced  com- 
munities. There  is  a  common  idea  that  Connec- 
ticut was  the  strictest  of  ail  the  colonies,  because 
of  a  belief  that  it  was  in  the  Connecticut  Colonies 
that  there  existed  the  famous  "  blue  laws,"  but 
these  were  never  really  in  existence,  being  drawn 
up  by  an  author  who  was  attempting  to  make 
fun  of  the  Connecticut  people. 

In  Virginia  the  men  delighted  in  fox-hunting, 
cock-fighting,  horse  racing,  wrestling,  dancing,  to- 
gether with  some  card-playing  and  wine-drinking. 
But  gambling  and  drinking  were  in  those  days 
marked  faults  of  the  same  class  of  men  through- 
out England. 

The  young  Virginians  were  much  fonder  of 
outdoor  life  than  of  study,  and  there  were  on  the 
great  plantations  many  opportunities  for  hunt- 
ing, horseback  riding,  and  every  sort  of  game  and 
amusement.  Some  of  the  horses  that  had  been 
brought  by  the  earlier  settlers  had  run  wild  in  the 
woods,  and  chasing  these  was  an  exciting  sport. 

The  life  of  the  common  people  was  far  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  better  classes.  They  had 
their  amusements,  but  these  were  of  a  rough 
sort  and  often  consisted  of  practical  jokes,  or 
rude  outdoor  sports,  accompanied  very  often  by 


Books,  Reading  and  Education     227 

hard  drinking  in  the  taverns,  if  we  may  trust  the 
stories  of  travelers.  There  seems  to  have  been 
much  brawling  and  fighting,  and  fighting  of 
rather  a  brutal  sort.  In  fact,  the  common  people 
of  Virginia  were  much  like  what  the  same 
people  were  in  England  at  the  time — fond  of 
horseplay,  cock-fighting,  and  popular  festivals 
such  as  were  common  in  the  Old  Country,  where 
men  ran  races  in  sacks,  climbed  greased  poles, 
and  amused  themselves  as  the  country  folk  did 
in  the  fairs  that  were  once  so  common  through- 
out old  England. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  for  a  long 
time  after  the  first  settlement  of  America  there 
could  hardly  be  any  time  or  attention  given  to 
the  lighter  sides  of  life.  Certainly  no  one  of  the 
earlier  settlers  could  give  himself  to  the  pursuit 
of  any  form  of  art,  nor  would  he  have  had  a 
public  even  if  he  had  produced  any  works  of  art. 
There  is  in  this  fact  food  for  reflection  for  those 
who  believe  that  the  production  of  art  work  is  a 
matter  of  inborn  genius  independent  'of  one's 
surroundings,  instead  of  being  the  fruit  of  leisure 
and  the  love  of  the  beautiful. 

We  have  already  in  speaking  of  the  ideas 
of  the  colonists  and  their  feeling  toward  na- 
ture, shown  that  there  is  little  or  no  trace  of  any 


228         When  America  Was  New 

care  for  the  beauties  of  the  natural  world  that 
surrounded  them.  Even  their  leisure  was  de- 
voted to  the  most  practical  matters,  or  to  the  re- 
ligious side  of  life,  which  to  them  seemed  the 
most  practical  of  all.  In  looking  for  the  first 
signs  of  an  art  feeling,  we  shall  be  compelled  to 
be  satisfied  with  the  decorative  taste  shown 
mainly  by  the  women  in  the  arrangement  of 
their  households,  in  their  qiiilt-work,  in  their  love 
for  a  spruce  and  shining  home,  and  their  taste 
for  bright  colors  in  dress. 

Among  the  Indians  we  know  that  there  was  a 
strong  liking  for  decorative  work,  as  shown  in 
their  embroidered  moccasins,  their  headdresses, 
their  decorated  pipes  and  weapons  ;  but  these  did 
not  seem  to  go  further  than  some  little  sense  of 
design  and  the  taste  for  brilliant  coloring.  The 
men  of  colonial  times  may  have  cared  for  rich 
clothing,  but  their  liking  for  it  seems  to  have 
been  rather  through  dandyism  or  a  love  of  mak- 
ing a  show,  than  coming  from  any  sense  of  ar- 
tistic result.  Even  in  the  women's  work  where 
an  artistic  effect  was  sought  for,  it  is  no  more 
than  right  to  admit  that  the  results  were  too  often 
barbarous.  How  any  sensitive  eye  could  bear 
the  exhibition  of  the  samplers  upon  which 
young  girls  spent  long  months  of  toil,  is  a  mys- 


Books,  Reading  and  Education     229 

tery ;  the  stiff,  distorted  figures,  the  ungainly  at- 
titudes, the  crude  funeral  urns  and  weeping-wil- 
low trees  all  tell  us  plainly  that  the  instincts  for 
art  of  our  remote  ancestors  were  often  less  alive 
than  those  of  their  Indian  neighbors. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  explain  how  such  a 
state  of  things  could  exist  among  the  people  of 
a  civilized  nation  that  knew  anything  of  the 
great  nations  of  the  past  did  we  not  remember  that 
they  studied  the  classic  authors  only  as  exercises 
in  language,  considered  the  old  gods  and  god- 
desses of  Rome  and  of  the  Greeks  as  being 
pagan  deities,  worse  than  idols,  and  took  so 
serious  a  view  of  life  that  public  sentiment  con- 
sidered a  taste  for  the  beautiful  to  be  an  unmanly, 
foolish  thing  only  to  be  excused  in  womankind 
because  of  their  weakness  and  lack  of  sense. 

Here,  once  more,  we  must  except,  of  course, 
the  few  cultivated  families  that  had  come  to 
America  from  the  higher  walks  of  life  in  Eng- 
land and  had  brought  with  them  some  little  cul- 
tivation such  as  then  London  and  other  large 
cities  could  give.  But  of  the  common  people 
and  of  the  country  generally  it  may  be  truly  said 
that  there  was  no  art  worthy  of  mention.  The 
painting  of  a  tavern  sign  was  its  highest  form. 

Very  nearly  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of 


230         When  America  Was  New 

music.  The  only  music  that  came  home  to  the 
people  at  all  was  such  as  a  country  fiddler  might 
furnish  for  the  dancers  at  a  wedding  or  a  merry- 
making, the  singing  of  a  few  songs  too  often  bet- 
ter fitted  to  a  tavern  than  a  parlor,  and  such 
music  as  was  to  be  found  in  the  church  services. 
The  same  Puritanical  objection  to  beauty  as  be- 
ing unworthy  of  a  serious  mind  kept  the  church 
leaders  from  consenting  to  the  improvement  of 
the  singing.  There  was  so  strong  an  opposition 
to  the  use  of  books  that  before  a  great  many 
years  had  passed  the  ability  to  read  music  be- 
came very  rare,  even  the  best  known  hymns  be- 
ing sung  by  ear  alone,  following  the  leading  of 
some  presiding  elder  or  deacon,  and  were 
changed,  distorted  and  ruined,  until  the  strictest 
Puritan  of  them  all  need  not  have  complained 
that  they  retained  any  beauty.  The  very  same 
tune  might  be  sung  so  differently  in  different 
churches  as  to  be  unrecognizable  except  by  its 
name.  No  doubt  there  was,  here  and  there  a 
musical  instrument,  but  there  was  no  public 
sentiment  calling  for  or  rewarding  skill  in  per- 
formance, and  it  may  be  said  that  there  was  not 
so  much  musical  culture  in  the  colonies  as  there 
is  in  most  savage  tribes. 

Exactly  what  brought  this  about,  unless  it  be 


Books,  Reading  and  Education     231 

Puritanism,  it  is  difficult  to  guess ;  for  during  the 
time  of  Elizabeth  music  had  been  much  culti- 
vated in  England,  the  playing  of  the  lute,  the 
viol,  and  other  stringed  instruments,  was  frequent 
in  every  household  and  greatly  popular. 

There  is  little,  in  giving  an  account  of  the 
times,  that  can  be  added  to  the  statement  that 
none  of  the  fine  arts  were  yet  in  their  beginning. 
Plays  likewise  were  lacking,  though  the  English 
stage  had  just  passed  through  its  most  brilliant 
period.  All  this  is  to  be  explained  only  by  the 
absence  of  a  class  that  could  spare  the  time  for 
amusements,  could  pay  for  them,  or  support 
amusements  or  companies  of  players,  or  who  had 
enough  interest  in  such  things  to  demand  them. 

Even  where  the  sentiment  of  the  Puritans 
hardly  existed,  the  chosen  amusements  of  the 
men  were  of  an  active  nature  and  their  time 
was  so  filled  with  hunting,  horse-racing,  cock- 
fighting,  wrestling,  and  similar  pursuits,  that 
they  cared  little  for  what  would  appeal  to  a  less 
active  and  better  educated  sort  of  people.  We 
shall  not  see  the  beginning  of  any  general  in- 
terest in  the  fine  arts,  or  in  the  lighter  sides  of 
literature,  until  increasing  wealth  gave  more 
leisure  and  a  generation  less  used  to  outdoor  life 
had  grown  up. 


232         When  America  Was  New 

The  only  times  that  brought  great  crowds  to- 
gether were  weddings,  funerals,  races,  militia- 
training  days,  and,  in  the  winter,  the  sports  of 
coasting,  skating,  and  sleighing,  which  the 
Americans  learned  from  the  Dutch  settlers. 

What  we  know  of  the  smaller  matters  of 
colonial  life  has  been  gathered  largely  from 
journals  and  letters  written  by  visitors  to  the 
colonies  in  early  times.  Of  course  there  were 
not  many  of  these  outside  of  those  who  came  for 
official  reasons  or  made  business  trips  either  in 
connection  with  the  commerce  over  seas  or  in 
order  to  learn  something  about  the  New  World, 
whether  with  the  idea  of  settling  or  because  they 
were  politically  interested. 

The  better  classes  of  such  visitors  probably 
were  those  who  came  to  Virginia,  where  they 
were  most  hospitably  received,  and,  in  fact, 
eagerly  welcomed,  because  of  the  news  they 
brought  with  them  from  abroad,  and  because 
from  them  could  be  learned  the  ways  of  the  Old 
World,  which  the  transplanted  families  consid- 
ered the  best  fashion. 

These  visitors  bear  testimony  to  the  great 
plenty  and  wealth  of  the  richer  planters,  but 
they  also  speak  of  their  way  of  life  as  having  a 
touch  of  the  barbaric.  The  whole  country 


Books,  Reading  and  Education     233 

seemed  to  them,  naturally  enough,  almost  a  rude 
wilderness,  even  as  compared  with  the  conditions 
at  home,  which  might  have  seemed  to  us  little 
better.  They  found  many  of  the  ways  of  life 
very  rough  and  the  discomforts  extreme. 

In  going  from  place  to  place  these  visitors 
often  had  to  camp  out  by  a  fire,  as  if  they  were 
explorers  in  a  new  land,  and  in  crossing  rivers  at 
times  either  were  thankful  to  heaven  for  the 
chance  of  finding  a  boat,  or,  in  the  absence  of  a 
ford,  would  swim  their  horses.  They  carried 
provisions  with  them,  since  there  was  no  place 
where  travelers  could  be  lodged,  except  in  the 
larger  settlements.  They  complain  also  of  the 
lack  of  welcome  in  some  of  the  smaller  towns, 
where  strangers  were  still  looked  upon  with  sus- 
picion. 

As  to  the  look  of  the  country  itself,  they  de- 
scribe it  as  thickly  grown  with  trees,  with  grass, 
"  man-high,  unmowed,  uneaten,  and  uselessly 
withering."  They  speak  of  the  great  abundance 
of  fish  in  the  streams  and  animals  in  the  woods. 

As  to  the  people,  one  characteristic  remarked 
upon  is  the  great  love  of  dress  among  the  women, 
and  the  lack  of  nicety  about  little  matters.  Thus 
two  French  travelers  tell  us  how  "  Silk  stockings 
were  worn  with  boots,  window-panes  were  left 


234         When  America  Was  New 

unmended,  and  the  pairs  of  horses  to  draw  the 
planters'  coaches  were  not  carefully  matched." 

They  tell  us  how  much  visiting  there  was  in 
the  Southern  plantations — whole  families  coming 
on  horseback  in  the  morning  and  not  returning 
home  until  late  at  night.  More  than  one  of  the 
travelers  reports  trouble  with  the  rough  fellows 
of  the  smaller  towns,  who,  without  intending 
any  great  harm,  would  play  rough  practical 
jokes  and  become  quarrelsome  when  their  horse- 
play was  resented.  Indeed,  from  the  reports  of 
these  travelers,  although  they  agree  that  the  best 
classes  of  Virginians  were  the  finest  in  the  coun- 
try, yet  they  found  the  only  very  poor,  the  only 
idlers,  living  in  this  same  region  of  large  farms  ; 
whereas  in  early  New  England  there  was  really 
no  poverty  at  all — no  actual  distress,  at  least. 


CHAPTER  XI 
EFFECTS  OF  THE  NEW  LIFE 

ALTHOUGH  in  reading  of  the  sickness 
and  the  privations  suffered  by  the  new- 
comers to  America  we  are  likely  to 
think  of  the  people  themselves  as  not  being 
especially  strong  and  clever,  yet  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  the  conditions  surrounding  them 
were  such  as  to  task  the  brain  and  muscle,  the 
health  and  the  spirit,  of  the  best.  These  men 
were  unusual,  or  they  would  not  have  come. 
The  selection  among  the  families  that  had  fled 
from  England  to  Holland  included  only  the 
strongest  and  best  fitted  in  making  up  the  party 
to  go  upon  the  Mayflower.  Although  so  many, 
both  north  and  south,  died  under  their  hard- 
ships, yet  only  the  strongest  and  ablest  men  and 
women,  as  a  rule,  tried  to  make  the  journey,  and 
of  these  only  the  most  hardy  lived  through  the 
earlier  days. 

In  short,  it  may  be  said  that  the  beginners  of 

America  were  chosen,  tried,  and  sifted,  until  the 

ancestors  of  the  race  that  made  our  nation  out  of 

the  wilderness   were  the  chosen  of  the   chosen. 

235 


236         When  America  Was  New 

Both  north  and  south,  the  great  trials  of  the 
sea- voyage  and  the  need  of  strong  bodies  and 
active  minds  to  meet  the  conditions  of  life  in  the 
new  country  resulted  in  making  the  earliest  set- 
tlers and  their  children  a  hardy,  rugged  race,  full 
of  resources.  They  had  to  work  with  their 
hands,  to  contrive  with  their  minds,  to  be  cour- 
ageous, patient,  and  enduring.  Their  children, 
who  had  known  no  other  life,  met  the  new  con- 
ditions more  cheerfully  and  thrived  under  them 
better  than  their  parents. 

So  soon  as  the  worst  troubles  were  past,  the 
settlers  were  in  many  ways  a  great  deal  better  off 
than  they  had  been  at  home.  They  had  more 
abundant  food,  they  lived  more  wholesome  out- 
door lives ;  they  learned,  in  meeting  the  dangers 
and  difficulties  of  warfare  and  hunting,  in  con- 
triving to  make  for  themselves  what  they  needed, 
in  being  content  with  a  little  and  in  making  the 
best  of  it,  what  things  in  life  were  best  worth 
having  and  what  might  be  spared. 

It  is  true  that  they  had  no  learning,  and  could 
know  but  little  of  the  world's  affairs  ;  but  if  they 
did  not  read  of  others'  deeds,  they  were  living  a 
life  that  brought  them  into  what  was  more  im- 
proving than  any  reading  could  have  been.  The 
world  about  them  was  new  and  excited  their  in- 


Effects  of  the  New  Life  237 

terest  as  the  more  familiar  facts  of  the  old  life 
could  not  do.  They  had  to  leave  the  old  ways 
worn  easy  for  them  by  their  ancestors,  and  could 
not  therefore  live  without  much  thinking,  as  men 
and  women  and  children  may  do  where  every- 
thing is  prepared  for  them.  They  had  in  the 
New  World  few  to  direct  them,  and  had  left  be- 
hind them  a  great  mass  of  old  laws,  old  notions, 
old  beliefs,  that  had  saved  them  the  trouble  of 
thinking. 

In  short,  the  men  of  the  New  World  may  be 
compared  to  children  who  pass  from  the  home- 
life  where  everything  is  laid  down  by  rule,  and 
where  they  think  little  for  themselves,  to  a  life  in 
the  outer  world  where  they  must  make  them- 
selves over.  Instead  of  having  parents  and 
elders  to  tell  them  what  to  do,  they  must  meet 
and  decide  questions  for  themselves.  We  all 
know  that  it  is  in  this  way  that  young  people's 
characters  are  best  formed,  and  the  effect  upon 
the  first  Americans  was  similar  to  this.  Chosen 
men  in  the  first  place,  they  learned  by  their  freer, 
wider,  and  deeper  life  to  develop  the  best  that  was 
in  them.  At  times,  of  course,  this  change  made 
men  worse,  just  as  more  freedom  and  greater  op- 
portunities sometimes  make  young  people  worse. 
But  in  nearly  every  case  the  effect  was  to  make 


238         When  America  Was  New 

men  more  manly  and  to  develop  their  better 
powers. 

It  is  not  easy  to  give  instances,  since  even  a 
brief  account  of  a  few  of  the  more  prominent 
men  in  a  single  colony  during  its  first  eighty  or 
ninety  years,  requires  more  space  than  we  can 
give.  Their  lives  can  be  best  understood  only  by 
reading  them  in  full.  Captain  John  Smith,  for 
example,  from  being  no  more  than  a  clever 
soldier  and  reckless  adventurer,  after  coming  to 
the  Virginia  Colony  found  himself  thinking 
about  the  future  of  the  whole  Continent  of 
America,  of  what  this  new  land  was  to  become 
to  England,  of  how  colonies  should  be  founded, 
governed,  and  cared  for,  of  what  industries  were 
best,  and,  generally,  of  questions  with  which 
statesmen  deal.  He  became  therefore  a  states- 
man. 

At  a  later  time,  when  trade  between  England 
and  Virginia  increased,  men  who  at  first  entered 
it  with  no  idea  except  to  become  rich  were  led  to 
take  an  interest  in  the  colony  and  its  govern- 
ment, to  settle  there,  and  to  become  leading 
men,  busy  with  questions  of  government  and 
with  the  management  of  great  estates  and  the 
welfare  of  their  neighbors. 

Such  a  man  was  Thomas  Stegg,  the  younger. 


Effects  of  the  New  Life  239 

His  father  was  a  sea  captain  who  came  to  the 
James  River  in  the  earliest  times,  settled  there, 
and  after  a  life  of  trade  died  a  rich  man,  leaving 
his  property  to  his  son  of  the  same  name.  This 
son  became  a  member  of  the  Virginia  Council, 
but  being  childless,  sent  to  England  for  his 
nephew,  William  Byrd,  son  of  a  London  gold- 
smith. William  Byrd  married  the  daughter  of  a 
fine  cavalier  family,  was  distinguished  as  a  business 
man  and  statesman,  and  left  a  son  who  bore  the 
same  name  and  succeeded  to  the  place  held  by 
his  father  and  his  great-uncle. 

All  three  had  continued  their  trading  life,  but 
the  growth  in  civilization  may  be  measured  by 
the  fact  that  the  younger  William  Byrd  became 
the  owner  of  a  library  most  remarkable  for  his 
time,  containing  over  thirty-six  hundred  volumes, 
seven  hundred  being  historical  books.  It  was 
probably  one  of  the  largest  collections  of  books 
made  at  that  time,  but  Byrd  was  a  scholar.  John 
Fiske,  the  historian,  calls  Byrd  "  one  of  the  most 
eminent  men  of  affairs  in  old  Virginia,  and 
eminent  also  as  a  man  of  letters." 

Both  father  and  son  were  Receiver  Generals, 
and  the  son  became  noted  as  a  historical  writer. 
A  sentence  quoted  by  Fiske  from  his  works  has  a 
humorous  touch  that  brings  him  near  to  us.  He 


240         When  America  Was  New 

speaks  of  visiting  two  mills  after  a  dry  season, 
and  of  having  "  the  grief  to  find  them  both  stand 
as  still  for  the  want  of  water  as  a  dead  woman's 
tongue  for  want  of  breath.  It  had  rained  so  lit- 
tle for  many  weeks  above  the  falls  that  the 
Naiads  had  hardly  enough  water  left  to  wash 
their  faces." 

Thus  we  see  the  grandson  of  a  London  gold- 
smith become  noted  in  politics,  literature,  and 
commerce,  the  founder  of  a  distinguished  family, 
and  owner  of  great  and  beautiful  estates.  In  a 
way,  this  career  is  like  that  of  many  other  men 
who  came  to  Virginia,  even  if  they  were  not  so 
distinguished. 

A  good  type  of  the  bold  and  able  younger 
men  was  Nathaniel  Bacon,  who,  when  Governor 
Berkeley  was  unwilling  to  send  forces  against  the 
Indians,  raised  a  force  of  volunteers,  subdued  the 
Indians,  and  when  the  governor  attempted  to 
punish  him,  defied  the  governor,  called  his  men 
together,  and  put  the  governor  to  flight.  Berke- 
ley came  back  with  a  strong  force  of  men  and 
ships,  taking  possession  of  Jamestown.  Then 
Bacon  besieged  the  town,  drove  the  governor 
out,  and  burned  Jamestown.  But  after  Bacon's 
rebellion  had  really  succeeded,  it  came  to  an  end 
because  of  the  death  of  its  leader.  Then  Berke- 


Effects  of  the  New  Life  241 

ley  came  back  to  power,  and  punished  some  of 
the  rebels  so  severely  that  he  was  recalled  to 
England. 

Berkeley,  upon  his  return  to  England,  tried  to 
see  the  King,  Charles  II,  and  gain  his  favor ;  but 
Charles,  who  never  lacked  for  good  sense,  refused 
to  see  the  deposed  governor,  saying,  "  That  old 
fool  has  hanged  more  men  in  that  naked  country 
than  I  have  done  for  the  murder  of  my  father." 

The  main  importance  of  this  struggle  between 
the  governor  and  the  people  is  its  proof  of  the 
independence  of  the  planters  and  of  their  deter- 
mination to  insist  upon  their  rights  against  the 
royal  governors,  even  against  the  King  himself. 
It  showed  that  the  Americans  felt  that  they  had 
made  homes  for  themselves  without  the  help  of 
the  governors  at  home,  and  that  they  would  de- 
fend these  homes,  no  matter  what  the  laws  of 
England  might  provide. 

But  we  must  see  that  under  the  conditions  of 
life  in  Virginia  and  other  colonies  of  the  same 
kind,  the  rich  planters  were  really  only  English- 
men living  away  from  home.  They  heard  from 
England  frequently,  saw  visitors  from  across  the 
ocean,  knew  all  that  went  on,  and  were  different 
from  Englishmen  of  the  same  time  only  in  hav- 
ing to  govern  themselves,  and  in  having  to  deal 


242         When  America  Was  New 

with  bond-servants  and  slaves  rather  than  with 
hired  men.  They  also  had  to  bear  in  mind,  dur- 
ing the  earlier  years,  the  constant  danger  from 
the  Indians  ;  and  this  made  them  think  more  x>f 
war  and  weapons  than  did  the  English  gentlemen. 

The  founders  of  New  England,  as  has  bfeen  said, 
were  of  two  types.  The  main  type  represented 
by  the  Pilgrim,  may  be  said  to  be  a  man  of 
the  middle  class,  either  a  farmer  or  a  tradesman 
who  had  made  his  living  in  some  small  way  in 
England  and  become  separated  from  his  neigh- 
bors by  his  independence  in  religious  questions. 
In  coming  to  America  he  was  compelled  to 
develop  from  one  who  had  been  used  to  a  nar- 
row, limited  life,  to  a  man  of  general  affairs,  ready 
to  deal  with  all  sorts  of  questions,  whether  these 
related  to  his  church,  to  the  schooling  of  his 
children,  or  to  the  managing  of  his  business.  He 
was  forced  to  work  for  his  living  with  his  hands 
and  to  make  for  himself  out  of  the  raw  material 
whatever  he  needed.  In  this  way  he  at  first  be- 
came a  skilful  worker  with  tools,  a  shrewd,  sav- 
ing, and  careful  farmer  or  merchant,  and,  above 
all,  a  man  who  could  contrive.  In  short,  he  de- 
veloped into  the  "  smart  Yankee,"  and  the  enter- 
prising American. 

The  more  prominent  men  of  the  very  earliest 


Effects  of  the  New  Life          243 

time  were  those  who  had  to  do  with  Church  mat- 
ters and  with  religious  questions,  because  such 
matters  were  what  the  people  put  first  and  cared 
most  about.  Later,  as  trade  and  commerce  grew 
and  as  manufactures  were  set  up,  the  men  of 
business,  the  clever  mechanics,  and  inventors 
came  to  the  front,  and  we  hear  of  bold  merchants 
•who  send  ships  throughout  the  world  wherever 
there  is  profit  to  be  made,  who  cut  down  the 
great  forests  and  build  the  swiftest  ships  in  the 
world,  who  think  out  ways  of  making  machinery 
take  the  place  of  the  workers  who  were  not  nu- 
merous enough  to  do  all  that  needed  to  be  done  in 
the  New  World ;  of  pioneers  and  engineers,  of 
bold  Indian  fighters  who  conquer  for  the  colonies 
new  territory  and  hold  it  against  the  Indians,  and 
establish  towns  in  the  wilderness. 

At  the  same  time  that  the  men  changed  their 
way  of  living,  and  from  being  settlers  and  Indian 
fighters  and  farmers  became  townspeople,  manu- 
facturers and  merchants,  the  women  and  children, 
having  more  leisure  time  and  being  able  to  live 
in  greater  comfort,  ceased  to  be  mere  household 
workers.  Something  like  social  life  begins  ;  there 
is  visiting  among  the  families  ;  the  women,  in- 
stead of  exchanging  receipts  for  cooking,  teach 
one  another  embroidery  and  fancy  work ;  and, 


244         When  America  Was  New 

so  far  as  possible,  attempt  to  live  more  as  do  the 
better  classes  in  England.  -They  imitate  the 
fashions  of  the  old  country  in  their  clothing,  in 
hair  dressing,  in  amusements ;  and  they  begin, 
especially,  to  delight  in  gardening ;  as,  indeed, 
was  the  case  much  earlier  in  Virginia  and  the 
Carolinas.  The  sale  of  flowers  and  seeds  by 
women  was  not  at  all  uncommon  as  a  way  of 
making  a  living.  Mrs.  Earle  tells  us  that  the 
grounds  of  some  of  the  old  colonial  homes  may 
still  be  traced  by  the  flowering  plants  that  once 
stood  in  their  gardens,  and  that  we  may  now  and 
then  find  still  growing  wild  the  descendants  of 
flowers  first  introduced  by  some  colonial  house- 
wife. 

As  to  their  love  of  fine  clothing,  we  find  traces 
of  it  still  in  the  old  law  books,  where  there  are 
records  of  fines  imposed  upon  women  for  their 
finery,  and  especially  for  the  wearing  of  silk  or 
laces  by  women  who  were  not  of  high  enough 
social  station  for  this  luxury.  But  the  offense 
continued  to  grow,  and  it  was  the  law  that  had 
to  give  way  rather  than  the  fashion. 

As  to  the  children,  the  chief  change  made  in 
their  life  by  the  growing  of  the  country  was  in 
the  matter  of  their  education.  Schools  were 


Effects  of  the  New  Life          245 

established  as  soon  as  the  children  could  be 
spared  from  home  work,  and  as  soon  as  the  towns 
could  afford  to  put  up  buildings  and  provide 
teachers.  The  hours  saved  from  work  were  given 
to  schooling,  and  with  the  school  hours  more 
time  was  given  to  play.  In  this  way  the  growth 
of  the  country  really  gave  the  children  back  their 
childhood.  They  had  time  to  grow  up  and  were 
not  too  soon  expected  to  follow  in  the  footsteps 
of  their  fathers  and  mothers. 

In  the  earliest  times  we  read  of  children  knit- 
ting stockings  at  four  years  of  age.  And  a  little 
later  we  shall  still  see  that  children  were  expected 
to  do  such  light  work  as  winding  thread,  carding 
wool,  and  spinning,  until  they  were  able  to  do 
their  part  at  the  heavy  looms.  But  as  we  come 
nearer  to  our  own  times  we  shall  find  that  the 
elders  believed  more  and  more  in  the  wisdom  of 
leaving  children  to  develop  and  to  prepare  for  life 
before  calling  them  to  take  an  actual  part  in  it. 

This  longer  education  for  children  has  always 
come  about  as  soon  as  people  begin  to  be  rich 
enough  to  spare  the  children  from  helping  in 
their  own  work,  and  in  the  latter  part  of  our  first 
century  people  were  growing  rich  in  America- 
This  came  about  naturally  when  a  hard-working 
and  clever  race  came  to  a  land  so  varied  in  cli- 


246         When  America  Was  New 

mate,  so  rich  in  soil,  and  lying  in  a  latitude  that 
gave  good  weather  for  farming  and  for  work  of 
all  sorts. 

We  have  shown  already  how  the  possession  of 
a  little  money  helped  a  man  to  make  more,,  and 
have  said  that  this  power  to  make  larger  profits 
came  from  raising  things  or  making  things  that 
could  be  sold  either  to  other  colonies  or  abroad. 
But  as  fast  as  men  tried  to  get  crops  from  the  soil, 
wood  from  the  forests,  fish  from  the  sea,  and  built 
vessels,  and  so  on,  the  possession  of  land  became 
more  and  more  valuable.  No  matter  what  sort 
of  work  a  man  does,  he  must  get  the  thing  to 
work  upon  chiefly  from  the  land,  and  when  this 
land  is  owned  by  some  one  who  can  charge  for 
the  right  to  take  things  from  it,  the  owning  of 
plenty  of  land  will  make  the  owner  rich ;  for  he 
receives  money  or  property  in  return  only  for 
saying  that  another  man  may  work  on  the  land 
and  use  what  is  raised  from  it  for  living  or  for 
trade. 

There  was  much  luck  in  the  question  of  which 
settlers  should  become  rich.  No  one,  at  first, 
could  tell  what  parts  of  the  land  would  be  worth 
most  because  of  the  growth  of  towns  or  cities, 
or  the  finding  of  mines,  or  the  discovery  of  quar- 
ries, and  so  on.  If  in  taking  up  a  piece  of  land 


Effects  of  the  New  Life          247 

a  settler  happened  to  hit  upon  a  piece  that 
turned  out  very  useful,  it  would  become  valuable 
either  to  rent  or  to  use,  and  would  bring  him  a 
better  income  than  came  to  his  neighbor  who 
had  not  been  so  lucky.  Once  having  put  aside 
more  property  than  was  needed  for  a  living,  it 
was  easy  to  get  hold  of  chances  to  make  more, 
since  everybody  was  busily  at  work,  and  all  were 
trying  to  make  use  of  the  wealth  of  the  great 
new  country  into  which  they  had  come. 

The  growing  of  commerce  and  trade  also 
brought  out  the  talents  of  some  men  for  busi- 
ness, showed  them  to  be  good  managers,  and 
gave  them  employment  with  a  chance  to  earn  a 
good  income.  The  American  Colonies  did  not 
have  to  wait  until  they  became  markets  for  each 
other,  since  they  were  closely  connected  with  an 
old  country  across  the  sea  that  would  buy  what 
they  sent. 

What  happened  at  the  North  to  men  of  small 
means  at  the  start,  for  a  time  happened  even 
oftener  to  the  men  who  had  property  enough  to 
take  up  large  tracts  of  land  in  the  South.  They 
were  able  to  employ  plenty  of  laborers  to  raise 
large  crops,  and  from  their  sale  to  put  new  fields 
under  cultivation.  In  fact,  we  may  look  upon 
America  at  the  time  as  a  great  warehouse  full  of 


248         When  America  Was  New 

raw  material  ready  to  be  made  into  all  the  things 
men  use,  and  as  having  been  opened  suddenly  to 
a  number  of  clever  men  ready  to  do  the  work  of 
making  that  raw  material  ready  for  the  market. 

Those  who  grew  rich  first  were  of  course  the 
ones  who  owned  the  land,  or,  to  carry  out  our 
figure  of  speech,  made  others  pay  for  the  use  of 
the  raw  material  in  the  warehouse,  and  following 
them  and  depending  on  them,  were  the  men  who 
were  busied  in  transporting  the  goods  from  the 
places  where  they  were  made  to  those  where 
they  were  sold;  and  many  men  acquired  for- 
tunes as  merchant  traders  and  shipowners. 

In  those  days  any  man  of  industry  and  good 
character  who  did  not  waste  what  he  earned, 
would  find  living  cheap  and  might  acquire  prop- 
erty. A  little  later,  when  the  newcomers  found 
themselves  in  a  land  already  possessed  by  others, 
it  became  harder  for  them  to  succeed.  The  best 
harbors,  the  best  plantations,  the  choicest  places 
for  shipyards,  and  so  on,  were  in  the  possession 
of  those  who  had  come  before  them,  and  it  re- 
quired in  these  later  comers  greater  ability  to 
make  the  same  success.  Those  who  remained 
poor  (and  we  have  already  learned  that  there  was 
no  real  poverty  in  the  northern  colonies)  were 
men  who  did  not  make  good  use  of  their  oppor- 


Effects  of  the  New  Life  249 

tunities,  who  were  idle,  drank  too  much,  or  who 
had  no  ambition  to  drive  them  to  the  steady 
industry  required  by  life  in  a  busy  country. 

Later  generations,  consisted,  of  course,  of  these 
two  first  classes  of  rich  and  poor,  and  their  start 
in  life  was  very  different  from  one  another.  The 
son  of  a  rich  merchant,  for  example,  might  begin 
as  the  owner  of  a  number  of  fine  vessels,  with  a 
business  connection  already  made  for  him  by  Tiis 
father,  and  with  a  careful  training  from  his  early 
days  that  taught  him  how  to  use  the  very  things 
that  had  made  his  father's  wealth.  If  he  were  of 
the  same  ability  and  the  same  good  character,  he 
could  hardly  fail  to  increase  his  wealth  even 
faster  than  his  father  had  done. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  son  of  a  man  who  had 
lived  all  his  life  from  hand  to  mouth  would  have 
to  begin  with  little  or  nothing  except  his  own 
brain  and  hands,  and  would  not  be  likely  to  over- 
come the  start  of  the  other  young  man  born  to 
wealth. 

All  this  serves  to  explain  both  why,  as  a  com- 
munity grows  older,  there  is  a  division  into  the 
rich  and  the  poor,  and  also  why  the  difference 
between  them  is  likely  to  increase,  so  that — to 
use  a  phrase  often  heard — the  rich  become  richer 
and  the  poor  become  poorer.  It  will  also  show 


250         When  America  Was  New 

that  if  any  people  were  taken  out  of  their  sur- 
roundings and  put,  as  the  first  Americans  were 
put,  into  a  new  country,  they  would  all  begin  in 
much  the  same  circumstances,  but  in  a  few  gen- 
erations would  come  again  to  be  divided  into  the 
rich  and  the  poor. 

As  a  result  of  this  change  from  the  early  state 
of  things  where  men's  possessions  and  ways  of 
life  were  about  alike,  it  came  about  that  the 
people  began  to  divide  into  the  rich  and  the 
poor,  and  into  different  social  classes. 

The  first  result  of  gaining  wealth  in  a  family  is 
to  allow  time  for  the  longer  and  more  careful 
teaching  of  the  children,  which  ought  to  give 
them  a  better  opportunity  for  success  in  life,  and 
usually  does  so.  A  difference  in  the  education 
of  the  young  people  of  a  community  results  in 
making  them  less  likely  to  keep  together  in  after 
life.  Certain  callings  require  this  long  prepara- 
tion, and  into  these  callings  go  the  children  of 
those  who  can  afford  to  educate  them.  Such 
callings  are  the  so-called  learned  professions; 
that  is,  the  ministry,  the  bar,  and  medicine,  which 
can  hardly  be  entered  upon  by  the  children  of 
parents  who  must  turn  the  young  out  into  the 
world  to  support  themselves  at  an  early  age. 

With  a  difference  in  education  and  in  callings, 


Effects  of  the  New  Life          251 

there  comes  a  difference  in  interests  that  will  in 
time  prevent  any  close  association  between  men 
whose  daily  life  is  so  different  as  that  of  the 
lawyer  and  the  farmer,  the  great  merchant  and 
the  sailor,  the  clergyman  and  the  lumberman. 
They  do  not  think  about  the  same  matters,  as  a 
rule,  and  therefore  can  find  little  pleasure  in  each 
other's  society.  This  difference  once  begun  tends 
to  make  others.  There  is  not  the  same  nicety 
of  dress  in  one  as  in  the  other,  there  is  a  differ- 
ence in  the  working  hours,  and  in  their  daily 
companions,  a  difference  in  tastes  and  in  amuse- 
ments. 

It  is  these  causes  that  divide  people  into  social 
classes  rather  than  any  difference  in  the  people 
themselves  or  any  lack  of  human  feeling  toward 
one  another.  For  these  reasons,  in  the  northern 
colonies  there  began  to  be  social  divisions  be- 
tween the  great  merchants  and  their  families  and 
the  small  traders  who  had  less  leisure  and  con- 
sequently less  cultivation. 

Where  these  differences  of  social  rank  were 
not  created,  as  in  the  country  towns  made  up  of 
men  whose  circumstances  remained  much  alike, 
the  same  condition  of  affairs  as  in  the  early  set- 
tlements was  not  greatly  changed,  and  the  fami- 
lies of  a  neighborhood  remained  united  and  com- 


252         When  America  Was  New 

panionable  and  were  not  grouped.  In  the  towns 
and  still  more  in  the  larger  cities  where  com- 
merce, trade,  and  manufacture,  created  classes 
with  wealth  and  leisure  enough  to  make  them 
lead  a  life  different  from  that  of  those  whom  they 
employ,  the  forming  of  classes  was  rapid. 

In  order  to  be  fair  to  our  ancestors,  we  must 
remember  that  this  change  in  their  way  of  living 
must  have  come  about,  that  it  showed  no  loss  of 
democratic  feeling,  and  was  no  proof  that  they 
were  not  as  united  a  people  as  before.  It  was 
only  the  getting  together  into  groups  of  those 
people  whose  bringing  up  and  whose  way  of  life 
made  them  agreeable  to  one  another.  That  af- 
ter a  time  one  of  these  classes  was  considered  to 
be  superior  to  the  other,  that  its  ways  were  imi- 
tated, and  that  those  who  had  no  right  to  be 
numbered  in  it  sought  to  join  the  class  simply  be- 
cause they  thought  it  better,  was  no  fault  of 
either  class.  Sensible  men  and  women  in  those 
times,  as  in  our  own,  know  that  the  qualities 
that  really  matter  do  not  depend  upon  either 
wealth  or  leisure  and  may  be  found  among  men 
and  women  of  all. ranks  of  life. 

Another  thing  that  tended  to  fix  the  division 
between  the  different  classes  that  grew  up  was 
the  fact  that  as  the  country  improved  men  of  a 


Effects  of  the  New  Life          253 

better  class  in  England  came  to  America  to  live, 
but  lived  in  much  the  same  way  they  had  at 
home ;  and  these  brought  with  them  the  feelings 
of  social  classes  that  had  existed  in  the  old  coun- 
try. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  WOMEN  AND  CHILDREN 

IN  considering  the  womenkind  of  the  later 
colonial  days,  the  first  thing  to  bear  in 
mind  is  the  very  great  difference  in  feeling 
as  to  the  position  of  women  between  that  day  and 
our  own.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  in 
English  law,  and  of  course,  therefore,  in  the  laws 
of  the  colonies,  the  women  had  little  or  no  rights. 
They  could  not  leave  their  property  by  will,  they 
were  completely  under  the  authority  and  control 
of  their  husbands,  all  that  a  married  woman 
earned  belonged  as  a  matter  of  right  to  her  hus- 
band, and  mothers  did  not  even  have  the  power 
to  claim  their  own  children,  if  the  father  should 
choose  to  keep  them  from  the  mother. 

Neither  was  there  any  idea  that  they  should 
play  any  part  in  the  world  except  that  of  house- 
wife and  mother,  for  neither  of  which  duties  had 
they  any  especial  training  beyond  what  came  to 
them  in  their  own  home. 

When  we  speak  of  "  education  "  in  the  colo- 
nies it  must  be  understood  that  we  mean  the  ed- 
254 


The  Women  and  Children        255 

ucation  of  boys.  If  a  girl  were  taught  to  read 
and  write,  it  was  all  that  was  thought  necessary. 
At  home  careful  mothers  taught  the  children  to 
sew,  to  work  samplers,  and  filled  their  minds 
with  a  little  store  of  moral  maxims  and  rules  of 
behavior  by  which  they  were  expected  to  live. 

In  fact  the  chief  idea  about  bringing  up  young 
girls  in  the  colonies  might  be  summed  up  in  the 
word  "deportment."  They  were,  above  all 
things,  taught  to  carry  themselves  erect,  and  in 
order  to  insure  this  the  fashionable  little  girls  be- 
gan at  an  early  age  to  be  laced  up  tight  in  bar- 
barous machines  made  of  metal  or  stiff  slabs  of 
wood — machines  beside  which  the  modern  corset 
is  as  yielding  as  a  kid  glove.  In  order  to  be 
made  to  stand  straight,  they  were  even  set  in 
stiff-backed  chairs  with  a  straight  board  against 
the  spine  and  there  strapped  for  hours  at  a  time. 
Of  course  this  made  them  ache  to  the  very  bone. 

This  process  was  not  entirely  like  the  binding 
of  the  Chinese  women's  feet,  but  may  well  be 
compared  to  it.  Even  in  China  it  is  the  custom 
to  leave  alone  the  feet  of  women  whose  lives  are 
to  be  passed  upon  the  river-boats,  and  in  the 
same  way  the  strict  rules  of  behavior  were  not 
imposed  upon  the  wives  and  daughters  of  the 
earlier  settlers,  whose  too  "  correct  deportment " 


256         When  America  Was  New 

might  have  interfered  with  their  usefulness  as 
workers  and  Indian  fighters.  But  we  are  talking 
of  the  "  well  brought-up."  The  dwellers  in  the 
small  country  places  were  spared  such  troubles. 

But  with  the  growth  of  town-life  and  the 
taking  up  of  Old  World  fashions,  many  absurdi- 
ties of  dress,  demeanor,  and  deportment,  were  ea- 
gerly cultivated.  What  girls  were  taught  besides 
the  useful  arts  may  be  briefly  described  as  "  ac- 
complishments " ;  a  little  singing,  rarely  the 
playing  upon  some  musical  instrument,  dancing 
the  stately  and  rather  poky  figures  of  the  minuet, 
an  old-fashioned,  slow  walking  dance  with  many 
bows  and  curtseys,  and  so  on — made  up  the 
young  lady's  preparation  for  life. 

From  their  mothers,  who  had  been  good 
housewives,  the  second  generation  of  the  colo- 
nial women  did  receive,  however,  a  fair  amount 
of  real  housewifely  knowledge.  They  still  took 
pride  in  their  houses,  in  their  kitchens  and  their 
flower-gardens  ;  and  among  those  who  were  for- 
tunate enough  not  to  be  rich,  much  of  the  old, 
simpler  home-life  still  remained.  They  did  good 
honest  work  in  kitchen,  pantry,  dairy,  and  gar- 
den. 

The  children  of  the  earliest  settlers,  had  come 
all  too  soon  to  share  fully  in  the  lives  of  their 


The  Women  and  Children        257 

fathers  and  mothers,  assisting  them  in  all  their 
work,  and  taking  their  part  of  the  hardships  and 
dangers  of  the  family.  When  this  period  had 
passed  in  the  earlier  settlements,  and  the  town- 
life  began,  the  young  people,  besides  giving  more 
time  to  education  than  before,  began  to  be  dif- 
ferently trained  in  view  of  their  differing  pros- 
pects in  life.  The  son  of  a  merchant,  for  ex- 
ample, very  soon  after  he  had  finished  his  gram- 
mar-school course  and  had  acquired  something 
of  bookkeeping  and  arithmetic,  went  into  his 
father's  office  to  begin  an  apprenticeship  in  com- 
merce— to  keep  accounts,  write  letters,  and  so 
on. 

The  son  of  a  colonial  aristocrat,  on  the  con- 
trary, probably  began  to  study  for  one  of  the 
learned  professions,  and  was  early  taught  the 
elaborate  code  of  manners  that  would  fit  him  to 
take  part  in  the  social  gatherings  of  the  time. 
We  still  have  certain  long  lists  of  the  clothing 
that  was  thought  necessary  for  the  children  of 
fashionable  families,  showing  that  they  played 
their  part  in  society ;  and  just  as  the  sister  was 
taught  to  appear  at  her  best  in  the  ballroom,  so 
the  boy  learned  to  wear  his  sword  gracefully, 
make  his  bow,  bear  himself  properly  toward  his 
elders  according  to  their  rank,  to  drink  a  guest's 


258         When  America  Was  New 

health,  to  make  his  little  speech  in  proposing  to 
drink  a  sentiment  or  a  toast,  and  to  know  the  ins 
and  outs  of  etiquette,  and  the  demands  of  the 
"  code  of  honor  "  which  taught  that  a  gentleman 
must  at  any  time  be  ready  to  fight  a  duel  when 
need  should  arise. 

It  is  not  easy  for  us  to  understand  how  much 
of  this  old  code  has  passed  away.  To-day  there 
is  little  difference  of  manners  among  our  people, 
at  least  not  such  a  difference  as  divides  the 
people  sharply  into  classes.  But  then  there  was 
a  fixed  hard  line  drawn  between  "  polite  society  " 
and  "  the  common  people  "  ;  and  to  play  his  part 
in  the  former,  a  boy  needed  either  training  from 
boyhood  up  or  a  lifelong  familiarity  with  the 
ways  of  the  more  aristocratic  people.  It  was  not 
always  that  the  manners  of  polite  society  were 
better,  nor  were  the  fashionable  folk  always  bet- 
ter behaved ;  but  they  all  kept  to  certain  forms 
of  address,  insisted  upon  a  certain  respect  from 
those  they  thought  their  inferiors,  and  allowed  to 
their  equals  more  intimacy  than  to  others. 

In  fact,  people  in  polite  society  differed  from 
the  common  people  not  only  in  the  way  of  life, 
but  in  dress,  in  demeanor,  and  sometimes  in  their 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong.  A  man  could  not  al- 
ways gain  entrance  into  polite  society  even 


The  Women  and  Children        259 

though  he  enjoyed  the  respect  of  the  community, 
was  well  educated,  and  a  man  of  great  natural 
powers.  Even  at  a  later  date  we  find  Thack- 
eray 's  character,  Madam  Warrington,  a  fine  lady 
of  Virginia,  speaking  slightingly  of  the  man 
Benjamin  Franklin  as  a  common  printer's  boy, 
and  wondering  that  the  English  officers  who 
came  with  Braddock  should  admit  "  such  per- 
sons "  to  their  society,  if  they  knew  how  low  was 
his  origin. 

Among  sensible  people  such  differences  have 
entirely  passed  away.  Though  they  do  still 
recognize  social  rank,  it  does  not  prevent  them 
from  valuing  worthy  men  or  women  whatever 
their  beginnings. 

But  although  these  things  were  still  much 
thought  of  in  the  early  colonies,  yet  even  in  those 
times  there  was  the  beginning  of  the  conditions 
that  were  to  put  an  end  to  these  Old  World 
notions.  In  a  new  country  the  old  lines  could 
not  be  kept  up ;  there  were  too  many  who  by 
their  wealth  and  by  their  own  career,  had  earned 
the  respect  of  their  neighbors  for  the  lines  to  be 
strictly  drawn  against  them.  The  same  causes 
that  had  made  the  old  families  prominent  were 
all  the  time  bringing  forward  new  people  and 
giving  them  the  same  claim  to  respect.  Condi- 


260         When  America  Was  New 

tions  of  life  were  changing,  so  that  the  impor- 
tance of  certain  ranks  of  life,  such  as  the  ministry, 
was  not  so  great  as  it  had  been  in  the  early  days — 
and  the  more  powerful  men  of  the  community, 
the  possessors  of  its  wealth,  the  managers  of  its 
affairs,  were  often  found  among  men  whose  fore- 
fathers had  come  empty-handed  to  the  country. 

So,  although  the  change  from  rude  settlements 
to  settled  towns  had  brought  back  something  of 
the  old  feeling  as  to  ranks,  it  had  also  changed 
the  nature  of  the  people  who  made  up  the  better 
society. 

To  put  all  this  shortly,  we  may  say  that  the 
way  of  life  in  the  New  World  was  preparing  the 
younger  generation  for  a  democracy — that  is,  for 
a  land  in  which  there  is  equality  among  the 
people  so  far  as  their  rights  and  duties  are  con- 
cerned— and  was  putting  an  end  to  the  old  idea 
that  the  rights  of  some  classes  were  to  be  con- 
sidered before  those  of  others. 

All  that  remained  in  order  to  complete  the 
change  was  to  follow — the  cutting  off  of  the  New 
Country  from  the  Old 

As  to  the  younger  people — the  children — 
their  start  in  life  was  much,  the  same  in  all  the 
northern  colonies.  There  were  few  schools,  and 
nearly  all  the  children  of  any  town  or  village 


The  Women  and  Children        261 

must  go  to  the  same  schools,  and  have  the  same 
teaching. 

Probably  the  strongest  motive  that  moved  the 
colonists  to  provide  that  all  their  children  should 
be  educated  was  a  religious  one.  To  the  Pu- 
ritans, and  people  like  them,  it  seemed  wicked  to 
leave  any  one  unable  to  read  the  Scriptures  for 
himself  and  to  profit  by  the  truth  they  contained. 
Since  they  thought  that  each  person  had  a  right 
to  go  for  himself  to  the  Bible  in  order  to  find  out 
the  truth,  they  of  course  had  to  grant  to  every 
child  the  right  to  at  least  enough  teaching  to  en- 
able him  to  read  the  Bible.  We  therefore  find 
that  in  the  history  of  the  northern  colonists  the 
ruling  powers  took  steps  early  to  see  that  there 
were  schools  in  which  children  should  be  taught 
to  read,  write  and  spell ;  and  it  was  also  insisted 
that  all  parents  should  send  their  children  to 
these  classes,  or  that  the  children  should  be  taken 
from  them  and  made  to  go. 

Another  purpose  the  laws  about  education 
spoke  of  was  that  of  making  young  people  able 
to  read  the  laws  of  the  colonies,  which  in  those 
times  was  most  important  if  one  was  to  escape 
the  many  fines  and  punishments.  In  order  to 
pay  the  school  expenses,  these  were  charged 
sometimes  against  the  property  owned  by  the 


262         When  America  Was  New 

town  in  general,  or  they  were  shared  by  the 
parents  whose  children  attended  a  common 
school. 

By  about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury most  of  the  colonies  in  the  north  had  made 
some  provision  for  public  education — a  thing 
that  did  not  take  place  in  the  southern  colonies 
for  a  long  period  afterward;  probably  because 
those  who  ruled  in  the  southern  colonies  were 
better  able  to  look  after  the  education  of  their 
own  children  and  did  not  feel  that  the  working 
people  were  bettered  by  being  taught.  The  south- 
ern people  for  a  long  time  thought  that  the  best 
teaching  in  religious  matters  was  that  given  by 
the  church,  and  did  not  think  it  wise  that  the 
ordinary  people  should  form  their  own  opinions 
on  such  matters  from  reading.  At  all  events, 
the  setting  up  of  public  schools  in  the  south  was 
very  long  delayed. 

Of  course  the  schools  of  early  colonial  times 
were  built  and  furnished  in  the.  same  rough  way 
as  the  settlers'  cabins.  They  were  log-houses,  or 
small  board  structures  a  little  later,  provided  with 
the  few  rough  benches  that  were  needed,  and  in 
place  of  desks  had  long  board  tables.  The  mas- 
ter sat  behind  the  only  desk,  or  separate  writing- 
table,  and  ruled  his  scholars  with  the  same 


The  Women  and  Children        263 

tyranny  that  then  seemed  to  belong  to  all  persons 
in  power. 

Since  many  of  his  boys  were  big  brawny 
fellows,  used  from  childhood  to  hard  work  upon 
a  farm,  he  had  need  of  all  his  authority  and  force 
to  keep  them  in  order ;  and  the  teacher  did  not 
always  succeed.  Many  stories  of  life  in  the  old 
times  show  us  that  it  was  a  sort  of  custom  for  the 
biggest  boys  to  defy  the  master  on  purpose  to 
bring  about  a  fight  with  him,  and  that  the  master 
who  could  not  hold  his  own  in  the  struggle  was 
not  thought  by  the  parents  fit  for  his  place.  The 
master  who  proved  conqueror  was  admitted  to 
have  earned  the  right  to  rule,  and  usually  had  no 
further  trouble. 

Of  what  was  taught  in  such  schools  we  have 
already  spoken,  but  it  should  be  mentioned  that 
the  providing  of  wood  for  the  fire  and  seeing  that 
the  fire  was  kept  going  was  an  important  matter 
usually  made  the  duty  of  the  bigger  boys. 

Hard  as  was  the  learning  to  read  for  children 
unused  to  study,  learning  to  write  was  much  more 
of  a  task.  In  fact,  it  was  looked  upon  (as  indeed 
it  still  should  be),  as  the  acquiring  of  a  fine  art ; 
and  old  books  tell  at  length  all  the  steps  necessary 
that  a  young  man  should  become  a  skilful  pen- 
man, able  to  prepare  his  materials  and  tools  and 


264         When  America  Was  New 

to  turn  out  copies  in  a  "  fair  round  hand."  An 
old  piece  of  verse  given  in  one  such  book  de- 
scribes what  a  good  penman  should  possess : 

"  A  Pen- knife  Razor  Metal,  Quills  good  store  ; 

Gum  Sandrick  Powder,  to  pounce  Paper  oer; 

Ink,  shining  black ;  Paper  more  white  than 
Snow, 

Round  and  flat  Rulers,  on  yourself  bestow. 

With  willing  Mind,  these,  and  industrious 
Hand, 

Will  make  their  Art  your  Servant  at  Com- 
mand'' 

It  seems  to  us  that  the  young  people  who  lived 
in  the  Puritan  colonies  must  have  been  a  hard- 
worked,  serious  and  rather  a  priggish  lot  if  they 
did  as  their  elders  tried  to  make  them  do.  Prob- 
ably there  was  enough  liveliness  left  in  most  of 
them,  in  spite  of  the  strict  Sundays,  the  long 
meetings,  and  the  hard  schooling.  But  some  of 
the  youngsters  had  all  the  boyishness  taken  out 
of  their  lives. 

Sydney  Fisher,  in  his  book  on  colonial  times, 
quotes  from  the  diary  of  a  boy,  or  at  least  of  a 
very  young  man,  the  following  extract :  "  Of  the 
manifold  sins  which  then  I  was  guilty  of,  none  so 
sticks  upon  me  as  that,  being  very  young,  I  was 
whittling  on  the  Sabbath  day ;  and  for  fear  of 


The  Women  and  Children        265 

being  seen,  I  did  it  behind  the  door.  A  great 
reproach  of  God." 

Upon  this  Fisher  comments  :  "  This  morbid 
youth,  who,  in  Virginia,  would  have  been  hunting 
wild  horses  and  foxes,  is  said  to  have  prayed  in 
his  sleep,  made  long  lists  of  sins  and  things  for- 
bidden, <  chewed  much  on  excellent  sermons,'  read 
the  Bible,  and  4  applied  himself  to  fetch  a  note 
and  prayer  out  of  each  verse.'  " 

We  are  not  surprised  to  learn,  after  this,  that 
the  poor  creature  lived  in  the  deepest  despair  and 
died  at  the  age  of  nineteen  ! 

Of  course  it  would  not  be  fair  to  think  that  any 
community  of  young  people  was  made  up  largely 
of  such  religious  bigots,  but  the  men  who  set  the 
fashion  for  the  community  and  who  had  the  most 
influence,  were  men  who  taught  this  sort  of  thing ; 
just  as  the  men  who  in  Virginia  set  the  fashion 
were  the  great  planters  whose  life  has  already  been 
told.  Consequently,  among  the  young  people  of 
colonial  times,  we  find  every  sort,  from  the  hunt- 
ing, riding,  outdoor  loving  sons  and  daughters  of 
the  Southern  planters  or  the  northern  frontiers- 
man, to  the  town  or  city-bred  boys  and  girls  busy 
at  schooling  and  games,  and  the  Puritanical  New 
England  young  person  who  thought  more  of  the 
invisible  world  than  of  every-day  matters. 


266         When  America  Was  New 

But,  fortunately,  most  of  the  New  World's 
young  people  were  a  healthy,  simple,  hard-work- 
ing jolly  set,  not  too  bookish  to  miss  the  educa- 
tion that  their  life  gave  them. 

Life  in  America  was  simpler  than  that  of  the  old 
countries,  and  the  children  saw  a  country  in  the 
making.  They  were  lucky  not  to  be  born  into  a 
world  where  everything  is  ready  made.  They 
understood  things  from  seeing  them  done  before 
their  eyes.  A  colonial  boy  or  girl  saw  houses 
built,  ships  made  from  the  first  timbers  to  the  last 
ropes  ;  and  was  not  puzzled  by  having  to  study  for 
years  before  he  could  understand  the  working  of 
the  contrivances  that  were  around  him  everywhere. 

A  child  born  to-day  comes  into  a  world  where 
there  are  such  things  as  electric  lights,  wireless 
telegraphs,  dynamos,  trolley-cars,  triple-expan- 
sion engines,  motor  cars,  submarine-boats,  cameras 
that  take  pictures  in  a  thousandth  of  a  second. 
His  life  must  begin  with  years  of  teaching,  or  he 
will  be  amid  mysteries  always. 

But  the  colonial  child  could  soon  understand 
nearly  everything  he  saw,  and  in  a  few  years  could 
know  as  much  as  his  elders.  He  had  less  edu- 
cation than  our  children,  but  he  needed  very 
little. 

As  compared  with  the  boys  and  girls  of  their 


The  Women  and  Children        267 

own  time  in  foreign  lands,  the  children  of  the  col- 
onies also  had  the  advantage ;  for  compared  to 
these  also,  the  colony  children  found  it  easier  to 
understand  life  and  to  take  part  in  its  affairs. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
GROWTH  OF  A  NEW  PEOPLE 

IN  the  history  of  the  world  a  hundred,  or  even 
two  or  three  hundred  years,  is  but  a  short 
time ;  and  in  some  lands,  like  that  of  the 
Chinese  and  the  Mongolian  tribes,  that  number  of 
years  may  be  passed  without  making  any  great 
change  in  the  people  or  even  in  their  smaller  cus- 
toms. Even  in  the  lands  where  the  people  are 
what  we  call  "  progressive,"  until  our  own  time  a 
century  or  two  did  not  make  very  much  differ- 
ence in  the  ways  of  the  people. 

Before  the  inventions  that  have  so  transformed 
the  world,  there  were  no  such  great  changes 
seen;  even  in  several  centuries,  as  are  now  seen 
in  the  lifetime  of  a  single  man.  And  yet 
within  a  hundred  years  after  the  coming  of  the 
white  men  to  America  there  had  been  changes 
so  great  as  to  make  them  in  many  respects  a 
people  unlike  any  of  those  that  sent  settlers  to 
America. 

And  this  was  not  the  result  of  any  great  in- 
vention or  discovery  that  brought  differences  in 
the  way  of  living.  Even  after  the  first  American 
268 


Growth  of  a  New  People         269 

century  had  passed  there '  was  very  little  that 
would  have  seemed  strange  to  the  very  first  set- 
tlers in  the  lives  of  the  people,  in  their  houses, 
their  tools,  their  machinery,  their  ships,  their 
weapons,  and  the  like ;  and  yet  they  were  a  new 
people. 

Between  the  Old  and  the  New  the  difference 
that  had  come  about  was  chiefly  a  difference  of 
feeling  between  one  man  and  another.  It  may 
be  that  the  matter  may  be  put  shortly  by  saying 
that  the  Old  World  was  a  world  of  "  privilege." 
Men  differed  in  their  rights.  They  were  valued 
by  standards  that  did  not  depend  upon  the  men 
themselves.  On  the  one  hand,  among  the  higher 
classes,  there  was  a  claim  that  they  differed  from 
the  ordinary  people,  that  they  had  a  right  to  a 
certain  respect,  and  a  claim  to  a  way  of  life 'that 
they  did  not  think  was  proper  to  their  inferiors. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  lower  classes  did  not 
think  of  questioning  the  claim  of  the  upper,  nor 
did  they  seek  for  themselves  the  same  rights  or 
expect  to  live  in  the  same  way. 

We  shall  know  what  is  meant  by  all  this  when, 
in  reading  the  stories  of  the  early  settlers,  we  see 
the  attempts  at  pomp  and  parade  that  attended 
the  officials  even  of  the  rude  settlements  before 
they  could  be  called  towns.  As  the  King  at 


270         When  America  Was  New 

home  was  attended  by  courtiers  and  soldiers 
whenever  he  went  about  in  public,  so  in  a  smaller 
way  the  petty  governors  and  magistrates  ex- 
pected to  be  guarded  by  soldiers  and  followed  by 
attendants  when  they  were  in  the  exercise  of 
their  petty  offices. 

Where  such  claims  to  distinction  and  to  cere- 
mony were  made  and  much  thought  of,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  men  who  ought  to  have  been 
digging  in  the  fields  or  building  themselves  com- 
fortable houses  against  the  winter,  were  likely  to 
spend  their  time  in  wranglings  and  disputes  as  to 
which  was  the  higher  officer,  who  should  be 
president  or  leader,  and  in  distributing  petty 
offices  that  were  not  worth  the  trouble  of  a  half- 
hour's  talk. 

Edward  Everett  Hale  tells  us,  in  writing  about 
the  growth  of  the  democratic  spirit,  that  John 
Winthrop,  the  Puritan  Governor,  considered  that 
he  ought  to  be  attended  by  four  guards,  carrying 
halberds  ;  and  when  his  demand  for  such  a  body- 
guard was  refused,  arrayed  four  of  his  own  serv- 
ants in  uniform  rather  than  to  go  about  without 
proper  dignity,  as  he  considered  it. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  explain  that  at  a  time 
when  men  were  making  a  civilization  out  of  a 
wilderness  they  could  not  long  afford  to  consider 


Growth  of  a  New  People         271 

these  trifles.  There  was  little  use,  in  a  new  set- 
tlement, for  a  man  to  dress  himself  in  rich  cloth- 
ing, laces  and  velvets,  and  to  call  himself  a 
"  governor,"  unless  he  could  also  prove  in  times 
of  trouble  or  war  or  public  trial,  that  he  was  a 
man  fit  to  govern. 

Bacon's  rebellion  in  Virginia  shows  how  the 
Americans,  even  in  their  earlier  years,  put  down 
the  pretensions  of  a  man  who  would  not  do  his 
duty.  In  the  newer  settlements  also,  too  unat- 
tractive to  tempt  any  of  the  better  classes  to 
share  their  hardships,  the  Americans  were  com- 
pelled to  get  along  without  the  many  officials 
that  in  the  Old  World  had  been  looked  upon  as 
necessary.  They  soon  learned  that  a  man  could 
lead  his  neighbors  to  a  victory  against  the  Indians 
even  if  he  wore  his  working  clothes,  instead  of 
being  arrayed  in  the  regular  costume  of  a  soldier. 
They  found  that  the  men  of  any  settlement  were 
quite  able  to  rule  themselves,  to  punish  wrong- 
doers among  their  number,  and  to  decide  what 
should  be  done  in  times  of  public  danger,  even 
though  none  of  them  had  been  appointed  leaders 
or  rulers  under  some  high-sounding  name,  or  be- 
longed to  the  class  that  had  so  long  been  thought 
the  only  one  that  could  govern  and  judge  its 
fellows. 


272         When  America  Was  New 

The  same  feeling  had  made  a  great  difference 
in  their  belief  about  the  clergy.  They  had  come 
from  a  land  where  the  church  was  set  up  by  law, 
and  where  the  lawful  religious  leaders  were  men 
who  had  had  a  long  training  and  claimed  that 
the  men  of  the  Church  were  different  from  the 
rest  of  mankind.  But  the  churches  in  America 
were  many  of  them  independent,  and  the  people 
who  attended  these  came  to  believe  that  their 
own  teachers  and  preachers  were  in  no  way  worse 
than  those  who  claimed  the  sole  right  to  such 
places. 

In  the  army,  too,  the  Old  World  notion  had 
been  that  only  young  men  of  the  higher  classes 
ought  to  be  officers  ;  that  there  was  a  line  to  be 
drawn  between  the  officer  and  the  soldier,  and 
that  the  soldier  should  be  entirely  subject  to  the 
officer's  will — as  nearly  as  possible  a  mere  ma- 
chine. This  idea  lasted  perhaps  longer  in 
America  than  many  other  similar  ones  ;  but  this, 
too,  lost  its  hold  upon  the  people  when  they 
found  that  the  armies  trained  abroad  could  not 
do  so  well  against  the  Indians  as  the  raw  militia- 
men, the  fighting  farmers  and  hunters  who  had 
had  no  regular  training,  but  had  learned  the 
art  of  warfare  in  the  woods. 

All  these  causes  made  a  change  in  men's  ideas 


Growth  of  a  New  People         273 

of  one  another.  They  learned  to  value  one 
another  by  new  standards.  Men  came  to  the 
front  more  and  more  because  of  the  worth  that 
was  in  them  and  less  often  because  of  the  favor 
of  some  person  high  in  rank  or  because  their 
fathers  had  for  years  held  high  positions. 

One  of  the  things  that  had  given  men  great 
power  in  the  old  world  was  the  owning  of  land. 
They  had  held  estates  so  long  that  no  one  thought 
of  asking  how  such  ownership  had  come  about, 
or  at  least  explained  it  to  themselves  by  saying 
that  the  lands  had  come  from  the  King,  that  the 
King  held  his  place  by  the  favor  of  God,  and 
whatever  the  King  did  must  therefore  be  right. 

But  land-owning  in  the  New  World  was  a  dif- 
ferent thing.  Nearly  every  free  man  soon  be- 
came a  land-owner,  and  therefore  nothing  in 
mere  land-owning  put  one  man  above  his  fellows. 
It  was  seen  also  that  the  thing  which  gave  value 
to  the  owning  of  land  was  only  the  fact  that  many 
people  wished  to  use  it.  Where  there  was  no 
great  number  of  people,  the  land  itself  lay  idle 
and  was  worth  nothing  to  the  owner  or  the 
public. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  main  things  which  put 
certain  men  above  their  fellows  either  disappeared 
or  were  much  weakened.  Men  thought  little  of 


274         When  America  Was  New 

mere  titles,  or  mere  family,  of  the  names  "  clergy- 
man "  or  "  general "  except  where  these  carried 
with  them  ability  to  fulfil  the  duties  of  the  priest- 
hood or  of  the  army.  Mere  long  descent,  too, 
was  in  most  parts  of  America  nothing  to  give 
dignity  to  the  owner. 

Instead  of  dividing  men  into  classes,  therefore, 
for  these  reasons,  there  was  a  new  weighing  of 
their  fellows.  In  every  neighborhood  men  came 
to  the  front  who  were  really  powerful,  eloquent, 
or  able  to  do  what  needed  to  be  done. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  all  this  came  about 
in  a  short  time ;  but  year  by  year  less  was  thought 
of  old  distinctions  and  more  of  the  new. 

Together  with  this  change  in  men's  way  of 
valuing  one  another,  there  was  a  change  in  what 
men  thought  about.  In  the  Old  World  matters 
of  governing,  or  religion,  and  the  like,  did  not 
concern  most  people.  They  were  cared  for  by 
the  few  who  seemed  to  have  been  born  for  such 
duties.  But  in  America,  where  all  the  ways  of 
government  had  almost  to  be  made  over,  where 
there  were  great  differences  in  the  views  of  re- 
ligion, and  where  there  were  no  authorities  to 
save  the  people  the  trouble  of  thinking  for  them- 
selves, every  man  became  bound  to  think  over 
and  decide  these  questions  for  himself. 


Growth  of  a  New  People         275 

Although  at  first  in  most  of  the  colonies  the 
right  to  have  a  vote  on  public  questions  was  kept 
in  a  few  hands,  yet  as  time  went  on  it  became 
more  and  more  the  right  of  every  man  who 
owned  property  in  a  community,  or  who  helped 
to  pay  for  the  government  by  being  a  tax- 
payer, to  take  part  in  the  government.  This 
no  doubt  happened  because,  in  order  to  enforce 
the  laws  that  were  made  it  was  necessary  that 
the  people  themselves  should  be  in  favor  of 
them.  There  was  no  ruling  power  except  the 
armed  colonists  themselves ;  and  men  would  not 
help  to  enforce  obedience  to  laws  of  which  they 
did  not  approve  or  which  they  had  not  helped  to 
make. 

Such,  briefly  put,  are  the  main  ways  in  which 
Americans  came  to  differ  in  ideas  from  the  men 
of  their  own  race  who  remained  in  the  Old 
World. 

And  with  these  differences  in  ideas  there  came 
differences  in  behavior,  in  language,  in  dress,  and 
in  customs.  Men  who  cared  less  for  the  officers 
set  over  them,  and  who  began  to  think  that  in 
their  rights  and  duties  all  men  were  equal,  carried 
themselves  with  a  different  air  toward  their  fel- 
lows. The  humble  farmer,  or  peasant,  set  a  higher 
value  on  himself  and  looked  upon  other  men, 


276         When  America  Was  New 

whether  high  or  low,  as  entitled  to  the  same 
rights  that  he  claimed  for  himself. 

So  far  as  language  is  concerned,  coming  into  a 
world  where  there  were  so  many  new  things,  and 
where  so  many  things  to  which  people  had  been 
used  were  lacking,  the  language  had  to  be  made 
over. 

At  the  time  of  the  settlement  of  America,  and 
for  a  great  many  years  later,  there  were  really 
two  entirely  different  languages  existing  together 
among  the  English  people.  One  of  these  was 
the  speech  of  the  people,  which  was  made  up 
largely  of  plain  Anglo-Saxon  words  and  the 
words  that  were  used  mainly  concerning  matters 
of  daily  life.  But,  together  with  this,  there  was 
also  the  language  of  the  learned,  which  contained 
a  great  many  words  taken  from  the  Latin  and 
other  foreign  languages,  either  directly  or  changed 
by  the  addition  of  English  endings.  All  the 
learned  books  of  the  time  that  were  meant  for  the 
educated  classes  were  ordinarily  written  in  Latin, 
and  it  was  only  here  and  there  that  a  poet  or 
scholar  would  compose  stories  and  songs  for  the 
people  in  the  common  tongue. 

Even  as  late  as  the  time  of  Francis  Bacon  there 
was  a  belief,  which  he  shared,  that  the  tongue  of 
the  common  people,  the  English  speech,  would 


Growth  of  a  New  People         277 

never  come  to  have  the  same  standing  among 
learned  men  that  belonged  to  the  dead  tongues, 
the  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew.  For  this  reason 
even  his  "  Essays,"  though  composed  at  first  in 
English,  were  put  into  Latin  so  that  they  might 
have  the  better  chance  to  be  immortal.  Of  course 
we  know  to-day  that  the  great  Chancellor  was 
much  mistaken,  and  that  the  book  of  his  "  Es- 
says "  has,  and  will  continue  to  have,  a  much 
greater  circulation  in  its  English  form,  and  that 
the  Latin  book  of  the  same  "  Essays  "  is  now  used 
only  to  refer  to  in  case  there  is  any  doubt  of  its 
meaning  in  English. 

Besides  the  use  by  the  learned  men  of  Latin, 
there  was  what  has  been  called  the  "  court  lan- 
guage," which  was  spoken  by  the  aristocracy  in 
London,  and  which  was  to  become  the  fore- 
runner of  our  modern  speech,  since  it  was  the 
English  which  came  into  the  greatest  use  when 
traveling  to  and  fro,  and  when  the  mixing  of  the 
English  people  had  caused  them  to  give  up  the 
use  of  the  dialects,  or  the  peculiar  speech  of  their 
localities. 

Of  course  these  different  kinds  of  speech  run 
into  one  another;  that  is,  the  courtly  English 
borrowed  many  terms  from  the  common  speech, 
and  the  common  speech  gradually  took  for  its 


278         When  America  Was  New 

own  the  Latinized  or  more  difficult  words  that  at 
first  were  in  use  only  among  scholars. 

One  of  the  great  causes  that  brought  about 
this  change  into  one  common  English  speech 
was  the  translation,  in  the  reign  of  King  James, 
of  the  Scriptures  into  one  chosen  and  recognized 
version  of  the  Bible,  the  version  that  is  still  in 
the  widest  use  to-day  although  there  have  been 
several  other  translations  published. 

Dr.  Eggleston  points  out  in  his  "  Transit  of 
Civilization"  that  the  English  language  was 
quickly  developed  by  the  need  for  new  terms 
which  was  felt  as  soon  as  Englishmen  were  put 
into  new  lands  and  in  the  midst  of  strange  scenes, 
because  this  brought  about  a  great  increase  in 
the  number  of  new  words,  and  also  helped  to 
widen  the  meaning  of  old  terms.  An  instance 
given  by  him  of  this  need  for  new  meanings  is 
the  difficulty  found  in  finding  the  right  names 
for  the  chiefs  of  the  Indian  tribes  in  America. 
The  earliest  settlers  described  them  as  "  kings/' 
"  dukes,"  or  "  princes,"  which,  of  course,  gave  the 
readers  of  their  writings  at  home  very  little  idea 
of  the  true  powers  and  position  of  these  native 
chiefs  among  their  own  people. 

The  marriage  of  Pocahontas,  for  example,  was 
looked  upon  in  England  as  being  the  marriage 


Growth  of  a  New  People         279 

of  a  princess  to  a  commoner;  and  there  was 
considerable  doubt  whether  there  was  not  some- 
thing treasonable  in  this  joining  of  himself  to  a 
royal  family  on  the  part  of  the  plain  Virginia 
planter,  John  Rolfe.1  There  is  a  most  absurd 
scene  described  in  the  very  early  days  of  Vir- 
ginia that  was  caused  by  an  attempt  to  carry  out 
royal  orders  to  have  a  "  coronation "  for  the 
benefit  of  the  chief,  Powhatan.  Of  course  old 
Powhatan  had  not  the  faintest  idea  what  the 
white  settlers  intended  to  do  when  they  called 
upon  him  to  kneel  down  and  have  the  crown  put 
upon  his  head ;  and,  in  fact,  the  only  way  they 
could  make  him  kneel  was  for  two  strong  Eng- 
lishmen to  push  upon  his  shoulders  until  he  went 
down  upon  his  knees. 

Powhatan's  bark  house  was  at  first  named  a 
"  palace,"  and  it  was  a  number  of  years  before 
the  colonists  had  the  sense  to  adopt  the  Indian 
word,  "  wigwam,"  to  describe  the  long  Indian 
hut  in  which  the  chief  and  his  dependents  found 
a  lodging. 

The  new  animals  found  in  America  were  also 
a  great  puzzle  when  it  became  necessary  to  give 
them  names.  Where  they  were  entirely  unlike 

1  An  interesting  story  of  this  early  American  heroine  is  John 
Esten  Cooke's  "  The  Lady  Pocahontas." 


280         When  America  Was  New 

the  animals  known  at  home,  they  received  names 
that  described  them ;  and  Dr.  Eggleston  gives  as 
specimens  of  these  descriptive  names  "  bluebird, 
mocking-bird,  catbird,  black  bear,  and  flying 
squirrel."  But  in  the  case  of  the  raccoon,  though 
it  was  at  first  called  an  ape,  or  a  monkey,  it  after- 
ward received  its  present  name  as  an  imitation 
of  that  given  by  the  Indians. 

There  was  still  at  this  time  something  of  the 
same  feeling  in  England  that  in  the  ancient 
world  had  caused  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  to 
name  all  foreigners  u  barbarians,"  or  savages ; 
but  England  divided  the  world  into  the  Chris- 
tians and  the  infidels.  It  is  to  this  feeling  that 
we  owe  many  names  of  animals  and  plants  in 
America.  The  word  infidel  was  to  many  repre- 
sented by  the  word,  Turk,  since  the  most  familiar 
of  the  Asiatic  infidels  were  known  by  that  name. 
Then  it  became  common  to  call  whatever  was 
barbarous  or  foreign,  "  Turkish,"  and  we  find 
this  usage  in  the  name  given  to  the  turkey-cock, 
which  means  no  more  than  "  foreign  bird." 

The  Indian  grain  called  at  first  Indian  corn, 
was  by  some  Europeans  in  the  same  way  called 
"  Guinea  wheat "  or  "  Turkish  corn,"  not  with  the 
idea  that  it  came  from  Africa  or  Asia,  but  simply 
as  another  way  of  saying  corn  was  from  a  foreign, 


Growth  of  a  New  People         281 

or  infidel  land.  Even  to-day  we  have  retained 
for  the  word,  maize,  the  old  name,  "  Indian  corn," 
or  simply  "  Indian."  Later  food-products  com- 
ing from  the  New  World,  or  dishes  made  from 
them,  were  apt  to  be  described  by  the  native 
name,  and  in  this  way  we  get  the  word,  "  pone," 
from  "  ponap,"  the  name  given  by  the  Virginia 
Indians  to  bread.  Hominy,  samp,  supawn,  and 
succotash,  are  words  that  grew  up  in  America  in 
this  way,  from  Indian  terms. 

But  in  taking  over  for  their  own  use  words 
from  the  Indian  language,  it  usually  happened 
that  the  words  were  gradually  shortened  and  in 
some  respects  changed  to  make  them  easier  of 
speech;  for  the  language  of  the  Indians  of 
America,  like  the  language  of  the  Chinese,  was 
what  is  called  "  agglutinative,"  a  long  word  whose 
meaning  may  be  easily  remembered  by  thinking 
that  it  means  no  more  than  long  words  made  up 
of  short  syllables  glued  together.  Thus  the  In- 
dian word  for  a  soldier  might  be  made  up  of 
a  set  of  short  words  or  syllables,  that,  put  into 
English,  would  mean  "  fighting-man-with-a-long- 
knife,"  the  sword  being  chosen  as  the  chief  sign 
of  a  soldier  simply  because  there  was  no  Indian 
word  for  the  gun. 

These  examples  will  show  how  the  language 


282         When  America  Was  New 

of  the  colonies  came  to  differ  from  that  they  had 
spoken  at  home. 

In  the  early  days  of  American  settlements  it 
was  not  unusual  for  those  who  came  over  to- 
gether to  be  men  from  the  same  parts  of  the  old 
country ;  and  such  men  would  be  likely  to  use 
the  same  dialect,  for  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  in  these  days,  when  most  men  spent  their 
lives  in  a  single  small  region  and  when  traveling 
was  rare  and  there  was  hardly  any  circulation  of 
books  or  other  printed  matter,  there  was  not 
much  to  make  men  acquainted  with  any  dialects 
of  English  save  their  own. 

But  as  the  settlements  in  America  grew  in  size 
and  included  men  from  all  parts  of  the  old  coun- 
try, it  was  natural  that  words  applying  to  things 
known  only  at  home  .and  seldom  used  in  colo- 
nial life,  should  gradually  be  dropped  from  the 
language,  and  that  words  of  general  use  in  the 
new  country,  and  applying  to  the  new  circum- 
stances, should  be  learned  by  the  children  and 
young  people  ;  and  thus  that  the  language  of  the 
American  colonists  should  gradually  come  to  be 
a  common  speech  that  did  not  greatly  differ 
throughout  the  colonies.  There  were  differen- 
ces, of  course,  but  there  was  much  greater  like- 
ness between  the  English  spoken  in  New  York, 


Growth  of  a  New  People         283 

New  England,  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania,  than 
between  the  English  dialects  spoken  by  the  fore- 
fathers of  these  settlers  at  home. 

It  is  rather  remarkable  that  the  thousands  of 
black  slaves  who  followed  the  first  shipload 
brought  over  by  Dutch  traders  to  the  Virginia 
plantations  in  1619  have  had  so  little  effect  upon 
the  American  language,  but  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  these  slaves  were  entirely  cut  off  from 
their  own  language,  had  no  common  language  of 
their  own,  since  they  had  come  from  parts  of 
Africa  far  distant  from  one  another,  and  natu- 
rally learned  English  as  their  only  means  of 
speech.  The  so-called  "  negro  dialect,"  as  Dr. 
Eggleston  tells  us,  is  not  African  at  all,  but  is  the 
result  of  negroes  having  learned  English  from  the 
white  servants  and  bondsmen  who  in  the  early 
days  were  their  fellow  workers  in  Virginia. 

Another  of  the  causes  that  brought  about  a 
change  between  the  English  of  the  old  country 
and  that  of  the  new  was  the  need  for  attaching 
new  meanings  to  old  words  even  when  these 
were  retained.  An  example  also  given  by  Eg- 
gleston is  the  word,  "  servant,"  which  was  not 
resented  by  those  to  whom  it  was  applied  in 
England,  since  it  there  had  only  the  one  mean- 
ing of  "  follower,"  or  one  who  served  another  in 


284         When  America  Was  New 

any  capacity  as  we  see  in  the  old  phrase  "  Your 
obedient  servant "  used  in  signing  letters.  But 
when  this  same  word  was  used  in  America  to 
mean  the  black  servants,  the  convicts  who  were 
sent  from  over  the  seas  and  obliged  to  work  out 
their  passage-money  for  a  number  of  years,  and 
the  other  serving-men  and  women  who  were  in  a 
sort  of  slavery  until  they  had  earned  their  free- 
dom, it  was  natural  that  free  men  and  women 
who  worked  for  others  in  a  more  dignified  serv- 
ice should  object  to  being  called  by  the  word 
that  put  them  on  the  same  plane  with  a  class 
that  was  despised. 

The  effect  of  the  coming  to  America  upon  the 
matter  of  dress  was  twofold.  As  the  people 
came  to  care  less  for  the  division  of  the  world 
into  classes,  the  matter  of  what  one  should  wear 
became  one  that  was  more  practical  and  less  af- 
fected by  mere  custom.  Those  who  at  home 
were  quite  content  to  be  forbidden  by  law  to 
wear  the  fineries  of  polite  society,  saw  no  reason 
why  in  the  New  World  they  should  not  dress  as 
they  pleased  and  as  richly  as  they  could  afford. 

Though  it  had  been  the  constant  attempt  on 
the  part  of  the  magistrates  to  fight  against  the 
wearing  of  rich  clothing  and  expensive  orna- 
ments by  those  not  considered  of  sufficient  rank, 


Growth  of  a  New  People         285 

yet,  as  has  been  before  said,  all  such  laws  proved 
useless,  and  the  people  insisted  upon  the  right  to 
dress  as  they  chose.  In  this  way  what  had  been 
the  main  distinction  between  the  higher  and  the 
lower  classes  year  by  year  disappeared  in  Amer- 
ica, and  richness  of  apparel  meant  nothing  more 
than  the  ability  to  spend  money. 

Besides  these  changes  in  their  minds,  the 
American  people  changed  bodily — they  became 
by  reason  of  their  life  in  the  open  air  and  their 
more  abundant  food,  their  continual  exercise  of 
body  and  mind,  better  developed,  healthier,  and 
physically  stronger  than  people  of  their  own  rank 
in  England  and  European  countries.  They  were 
really,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  in  most  ways  far 
better  off  than  they  were  at  home.  They  had 
more  to  eat,  and  a  greater  variety  of  food  ;  they 
had  more  change  of  occupation ;  they  became 
accustomed  to  greater  differences  of  tempera- 
ture ;  and  all  these  things  helped  to  make  a  bet- 
ter and  stronger  race. 

Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  the  ordinary  man 
of  the  people  in  the  Old  World  had  little  hope  of 
bettering  his  condition,  whereas  in  America  there 
was  everything  to  make  men  ambitious  and  to 
promise  them  a  quick  reward  for  hard  work,  for 
shrewdness,  and  for  all  those  qualities  that  win 


286         When  America  Was  New 

the  liking  and  the  respect  of  one's  neighbors. 
Those  who  came  to  America  felt  that  they  had 
a  chance  to  better  themselves,  and  this  made 
them  more  enterprising,  more  industrious,  and 
also,  it  must  be  confessed,  less  contented  and  less 
docile,  than  their  forefathers. 

It  was  natural  that  such  conditions  should  pro- 
duce a  strong,  sturdy,  keen  and  brave  people ; 
and  such,  for  the  greater  part,  the  colonists  be- 
came. Many  of  their  faults  did  not  tend  to 
make  them  inferior  to  the  people  of  the  Old 
World,  since  these  faults  were  then  universal. 
Hard  drinking  was  common  in  those  times; 
roughness  of  manners  was  found  both  in  the  Old 
World  and  in  the  New ;  and  there  was  about  the 
niceties  of  life  much  ignorance  and  carelessness 
that  to-day  are*  found  only  among  the  most  de- 
graded. Book-learning  and  all  the  pleasures  of 
the  mind  were  confined  to  a  very  few  on  either 
side  the  ocean,  and  very  likely  to  fewer  among 
the  Americans  than  abroad.  But  that  is  a  thing 
which,  after  all,  has  not  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
character. 

While  there  were  many  good  results  from  the 
abundance  the  colonists  found  in  coming  to  a  new 
land  and  fertile  soil,  they  lost  some  of  the  habits 
of  thrift  that  people  of  their  kind  abroad  pos- 


Growth  of  a  New  People         287 

sessed  and  that  marked  the  earliest  settlers. 
When  living  became  easy,  there  was  not  the  same 
reason  for  saving,  and  the  Americans  became 
somewhat  wasteful.  The  habit  of  having  to 
meet  dangers  and  to  settle  difficulties,  not  only 
made  the  Americans  ready,  but  also  helped  to 
make  them  a  little  reckless. 

Then,  too,  as  they  saw  how  much  could  be 
done  by  the  possession  of  wealth,  they  came  to 
set  possibly  too  high  a  value  upon  the  gaining  of 
money  and  upon  its  mere  possession,  and  to 
think  too  little  of  other  things  better  worth  a 
man's  effort.  The  growth  of  America  in  power, 
in  wealth,  and  in  its  resources,  was  so  rapid  and 
so  soon  gained  the  respect  of  foreign  nations,  that 
there  was  a  tendency  for  the  American  who 
knew  little  beyond  his  own  country  to  believe 
himself  and  his  native  land  of  more  importance 
in  the  eyes  of  the  outer  world  than  either  really 
was ;  and  while  these  qualities  may  be  criticised, 
it  was  to  prove  fortunate  for  the  Americans  that 
they  possessed  pride,  bravery,  and  a  good  opin- 
ion of  themselves,  for  all  these  qualities  were  to 
be  needed  in  the  making  of  the  nation  of  to-day. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
INDEPENDENCE  AND  UNION 

IT  is  not  in  their  early  experiences  that  we 
can  see  any  differences  between  the  settlers 
and  the  peoples  from  whom  they  came. 
They  were  not  quite  alike,  since  they  came  from 
different  parts  of  England,  and  in  those  days  dif- 
ferent neighborhoods  were  unlike  one  another 
even  though  separated  by  a  very  few  .miles,  as 
most  of  the  people  traveled  little,  and  saw  mainly 
those  who  lived  nearer  to  them. 

Consequently  when  we  read  of  the  early  days 
of  one  of  the  settlements,  we  find  little  differ- 
ences of  ideas,  such  as  have  already  been  pointed 
out ;  but  in  general  what  the  settlers  did  is  much 
what  any  men  must  have  done  under  the  same 
conditions. 

But  very  soon  life  in  the  New  World  had 
made  them  more  like  one  another  and  less  like 
the  people  who  had  lived  in  their  old  homes,  and 
we  shall  see  in  colonial  history  certain  happen- 
ings showing  something  of  the  new  character 
acquired  as  a  result  of  the  new  conditions. 

In  the  first  place,  a  very  marked  trait  that  was 
288 


Independence  and  Union          289 

early  cultivated  was  independence.  They  relied 
upon  themselves  instead  of  looking  elsewhere 
for  help,  and  in  relying  upon*  themselves  came 
to  be  unwilling  to  submit  to  the  authority  of 
others.  In  Virginia  history  we  see  this  feeling 
bringing  about  at  a  very  early  time  rebellions 
against  those  governors  who  attempted  to  oppose 
the  will  of  the  people  in  serious  matters. 

The  first  of  these  was  against  a  governor 
named  Harvey,  a  dishonest  man  who  took  funds 
from  the  treasury  and  tried  to  sell  lands  already 
belonging  to  the  settlers.  Although  he  had 
been  appointed  by  the  King,  the  planters  would 
not  submit  to  his  misconduct.  They  held  an  in- 
dignation meeting  at  which  charges  were  made 
against  the  governor,  and  when  he  arrested  some 
of  the  members,  and  tried  to  arrest  others,  the 
planters  turned  upon  the  governor,  arrested  him, 
and  calling  together  an  armed  force  compelled 
him  to  return  to  England.  Although  the  King 
sent  Harvey  back  to  Virginia  and  threatened  to 
punish  the  rebels  against  him,  yet  he  was  forced 
to  remove  the  hated  governor,  who  afterward 
was  ruined  by  lawsuits  brought  against  him. 
These  used  up  all  his  estates  and  left  him  bank- 
rupt and  friendless. 

How    Governor    Berkeley   was    opposed    by 


290         When  America  Was  New 

Bacon  just  a  hundred  years  before  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  we  have  already  told ;  and 
these  two  instances  will  show  that  in  those  days 
of  customary  submission  to  authority  the  colo- 
nists at  times  found  the  courage  to  resist  bad 
governors  even  when  backed  by  the  King's 
authority. 

At  a  later  period,  when  King  Charles  was  try- 
ing to  seize  and  punish  two  of  the  "regicides" — 
the  Puritans,  or  Independents  who  had  been 
mainly  responsible  for  the  execution  of  his 
father — these  men,  Goffe  and  Whalley,  having 
escaped  to  New  England,  found  refuge  in  the 
New  Haven  Colony,  and  were  there  protected 
from  the  King's  officers  and  kept  in  safety 
though  the  strictest  search  and  closest  inquiry 
were  made. 

Since  the  main  questions  of  difference  between 
the  northern  colonists  turned  on  the  Church  and 
religious  matters,  we  shall  find  that  their  inde- 
pendence of  mind  is  shown  by  the  numerous 
sects  that  grew  up  in  New  England  and  found 
many  followers.  The  flight  of  Roger  Williams 
into  the  wilderness,  and  his  building  up  of  Rhode 
Island  and  the  Providence  Plantations  after  so 
many  followers  came  to  join  him  in  a  place 
where  they  could  hold  what  opinions  they 


Independence  and  Union          291 

pleased,  shows  how  many  there  were  who  valued 
freedom  of  opinion  in  these  matters  more  than 
comfortable  living. 

Many  of  the  new  settlements  in  America  were 
started  from  the  same  motive  of  wishing  to  find 
freedom  to  think  and  do  as  the  settlers  pleased. 
Thus  the  beginning  of  the  settlements  in  Con- 
necticut was  made  by  a  clergyman  named 
Hooker,  who  believed  that  all  the  people  should 
have  the  right  to  take  part  in  the  government ; 
whereas  John  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts,  was 
one  who  believed  in  confining  the  government  to 
the  better  men  of  the  community.  Consequently 
Hooker  separated  himself  from  the  Massachusetts 
Colony  and  went  with  his  congregation  into  the 
valley  of  the  Connecticut  River,  together  with 
others  who  believed  as  they  did.  Here  three 
towns — Hartford,  Windsor,  and  Weathersfield — 
were  founded,  built  mainly  by  the  congregation 
of  Thomas  Hooker  from  Cambridge,  Massachu- 
setts, then  called  Newtown,  and  by  two  other 
congregations  who  had  followed  their  example. 

These  people,  not  long  after  going  to  farming 
in  the  Connecticut  region,  formed  themselves  into 
a  separate,  self-governing  body,  apart  from  Mas- 
sachusetts ;  and  they  drew  up  a  body  of  laws 
which  is  declared  by  historians  the  first  written 


292         When  America  Was  New 

constitution  by  which  a  State  was  created  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  The  important  new  thing 
about  this  constitution  was  the  fact  that  others 
than  church-members  were  allowed  to  vote  in 
making  the  colony  laws.  In  other  ways  this 
paper  was  not  very  different  from  the  charter  of 
the  Massachusetts  Colony. 

When  the  rise  of  the  Puritan  party  in  England 
had  for  a  time  weakened  the  hold  of  the  English 
government  on  the  American  Colonies,  instead 
of  joining  themselves  more  closely  to  the  new 
government,  which  we  might  have  thought  they 
would  have  considered  to  be  in  sympathy  with 
them,  the  colonists  showed  their  independence 
again  by  insisting  that  there  should  be  drawn  up 
by  their  leading  men  a  written  code  of  laws 
which  all  could  read  and  by  which  all  might 
know  exactly  what  they  might  and  might  not  do. 
Before  this  code  was  written,  the  magistrates  had 
been  guided  only  by  the  general  rules  of  law  that 
had  existed  in  England  and  by  what  they  thought 
was  allowed  or  forbidden  in  the  Scriptures.  Of 
course  there  could  be  no  certainty  under  such  a 
system  as  to  what  any  magistrate  would  decide 
in  any  case,  and  this  making  of  a  written  con- 
stitution for  themselves  which  was  done  in  1641, 
shows  very  plainly  that  the  colonists  meant  to  be 


Independence  and  Union          293 

not  only  a  self-governed  people,  but  a  law-abid- 
ing one ;  that  is,  that  they  sought  rather  inde- 
pendence than  liberty  apart  from  law. 

It  is  not  meant  to  give  in  this  book  the  story 
of  minor  happenings,  but  rather  to  show  how 
those  persons  named  in  history  whose  stories  are 
told  there,  were  only  the  ones  who  attracted  the 
most  attention,  and  were  only  the  most  promi- 
nent persons  who  really  represented  whole 
classes.  While  we  hear  much,  for  example,  of 
Roger  Williams  and  of  Anne  Hutchinson  and 
other  reformers,  the  important  thing  to  remember 
is  that  these  were  only  the  leaders  who  spoke  out 
what  many  others  felt.  Their  lives  only  show 
that  in  the  New  World  people  were  thinking  for 
themselves  and  claiming  the  right  to  decide  what 
their  beliefs  and  what  their  religious  lives  should 
be. 

There  were,  for  example,  many  cases  in 
which  the  Quakers  were  persecuted  and  driven 
out  of  European  towns.  These  Quakers  were  a 
religious  sect  started  by  George  Fox,  about  1647, 
who  based  his  views  on  his  own  reading  of  the 
Bible.  He  taught  that  before  God  all  men  were 
equal,  and  so  that  tokens  of  respect  were  due  to 
no  man  but  only  to  the  Creator.  They  would 
take  no  oaths  to  support  the  government  nor 


294         When  America  Was  New 

would  they  swear  to  their  testimony  in  courts. 
No  doubt  among  people  so  extreme  in  their 
views  many  were  found  who  were  what  we 
should  call  "  cranks,"  and  for  their  crazy  deeds 
the  whole  body  of  Quakers  were  held  respon- 
sible. 

The  persecution  of  the  Quakers  showed  only 
that  the  New  England  Puritans  were  unwilling 
to  go  beyond  a  certain  point  in  their  religious 
toleration  and  did  not  propose  to  let  the  good 
order  of  their  communities  be  upset  by  persons 
who  did  not  believe  in  the  ideas  on  which  they 
were  founded.  In  fact,  their  turning  out  and 
punishing  of  the  Quakers  was  not  very  different 
from  their  putting  an  end  to  the  settlement  at 
Merrymount, l  when  they  found  that  if  the  men 
of  that  settlement 'kept  on  teaching  the  Indians 
to  drink  and  supplying  them  with  firearms,  it 
would  endanger  the  lives  of  all  the  white  men  of 
the  whole  region. 

Perhaps  we  have  said  enough  about  the  super- 
stitions of  the  people,  for  indeed  that  was  not 
more  a  quality  of  the  colonists  in  America  than 
of  people  the  world  over.  It  is  true  that  we  hear 
a  great  deal  about  the  witchcraft  trials  and 

1  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  has  written  of  the  doings  of  these  un- 
desirable settlers  in  his  story :    "  The  Maypole  at  Merrymount." 


Independence  and  Union          295 

troubles  in  the  town  of  Salem,  but  it  has  been 
shown  by  historians  that  such  happenings  could 
easily  be  matched  in  many  a  town  of  Old  Eng- 
land at  a  time  not  very  long  before. 

The  need  for  depending  upon  one  another  in 
the  New  World,  so  that  neighbors  were  accus- 
tomed to  be  called  together  whenever  any 
larger  or  heavier  pieces  of  work  were  to  be  done, 
or  whenever  public  danger  made  it  necessary  to 
unite  forces,  had  early  taught  the  colonists  that 
their  safety  lay  in  making  common  cause  against 
public  enemies. 

It  was  to  this  willingness  to  work  together 
that  the  downfall  of  the  Indian  power  along  the 
coast  was  due.  There  was  a  very  much  dreaded 
tribe  in  New  England  known  as  the  Pequots, 
who  were  considered  to  be  the  strongest  among 
the  Indians,  and  who  from  time  to  time  made 
raids  against  outlying  settlements.  When  these 
attacks  could  no  longer  be  borne,  the  men  of  the 
colonies  united,  marched  into  the  Indian  coun- 
try, captured  the  Indian  fort,  put  nearly  all  the 
warriors  to  death,  and  even  pursued  into  the 
woods,  those  who  escaped  this  general  massacre, 
finally  slaying  nearly  all  of  them.  This  was  in 
1637. 

Some  years  later  the  Indians  tried  to  combine 


296         When  America  Was  New 

against  the  whites  in  the  same  way  in  the  great 
uprising  known  as  King  Philip's  War,  in  1676; 
but  this  only  brought  about  a  still  wider  com- 
bination by  the  colonists,  who  gathered  from  far 
and  near  until  they  had  formed  a  great  army, 
and,  as  they  had  done  in  the  case  of  the  Pequots, 
followed  the  Indians  to  their  palisaded  fort,  took 
the  fort,  and  ended  the  power  of  the  hostile 
tribes  at  a  single  blow.  This  "  working  to- 
gether" in  time  of  war  with  the  savages — a 
thing  that  was  forced  upon  them — showed  the 
colonists  how  strong  they  could  be  when  united, 
and  was  one  of  the  things  that  led  them  to  their 
first  union. 

It  was  also  necessary  that  there  should  be  some 
agreement  as  to  the  rights  of  government  in 
different  settlements,  since  there  were  constant 
disputes  coming  up  as  to  what  laws  applied  to 
certain  happenings  ;  and  there  was  also  a  feeling 
on  the  part  of  the  smaller  colonies  that  the 
stronger  ones  at  times  claimed  too  much  power. 
Their  first  union  was  formed  in  1643,  and  was  a 
sort  of  league  "  for  mutual  help  and  strength  in 
all  our  future  concernments."  Four  New  Eng- 
land colonies  made  up  this  union,  and  were 
thereby  strengthened  against  their  chief  enemies, 
the  Dutch,  the  French,  and  the  Indians.  This 


Independence  and  Union          297 

first  union  left  each  colony  its  own  right  to  rule 
itself,  but  brought  together  leading  men  as  rep- 
resentatives from  each,  who  made  laws  in  regard 
to  matters  of  general  interest.  The  power  of 
thus  acting  as  one  great  united  colony  proved 
most  valuable  during  King  Philip's  War. 

These  representatives  were  known  as  "  com- 
missioners," and  were  mainly  elected  to  settle 
disputes  between  the  colonies  and  to  call  out 
troops  in  case  of  danger.  Their  acts  were  not 
interfered  with  by  England,  since  this  was  the 
time  of  the  great  Civil  War  between  the  King 
and  the  Commons. 

In  telling  the  story  of  what  the  colonists  were, 
we  have  had  to  refer  now  and  then  to  the  events 
of  their  history,  but  it  will  be  well  to  make  note 
in  a  few  words  of  the  principal  happenings  that 
were  of  most  importance  to  them  in  their  early 

history-  Bancroft  Library 

The  striking  events  that  young  readers  will 
find  most  interesting,  and  which  should  be  read 
about  in  books  that  can  treat  of  them  more  fully 
than  do  ordinary  school  histories,  are,  in  the 
early  history  of  Virginia,  the  great  Indian  up- 
rising under  Opechancanough,  Powhatan's  suc- 
cessor, which,  except  for  the  warning  of  a 
friendly  Indian,  might  have  put  an  end  to  the 


298         When  America  Was  New 

white  settlement.  This  occurred  in  1622.  Fol- 
lowing this  in  importance,  in  the  same  colony, 
are  the  story  of  Bacon's  Rebellion,  in  1676,  the 
true  facts  of  which  have  only  recently  come  to 
light,  and  the  similar  revolts  against  other  gov- 
ernors who  did  not  treat  the  planters  fairly.  The 
introduction  of  negro  slavery  was  an  event  that 
became  of  more  importance  in  later  times. 

The  story  of  the  colonies  should  also  be  com- 
pleted by  some  general  reading  (perhaps  in  the 
histories  of  Francis  Parkman)  of  the  doings  of 
the  French  in  Canada.  They  had,  by  means  of 
taking  possession  first  of  the  mouths  of  the  great 
rivers,  and  settling  along  their  courses,  secured  a 
claim  to  the  interior  portions  of  the  continent ; 
and  as  the  English  Colonists  spread  northward 
and  westward,  French  and  English  were  more 
and  more  brought  into  conflict.  In  the  quarrels 
of  the  whites  the  Indians  also  took  part;  and 
much  of  the  early  warfare  saw  the  French  and 
certain  tribes  of  Indians  upon  one  side,  opposed 
to  the  English  and  other  tribes,  like  the  Iroquois, 
on  the  other.  But  the  more  serious  struggles 
coming  from  this  cause  did  not  begin  until  about 
1690. 

A  happening  that  had  a  very  far-reaching  ef- 
fect upon  the  southern  colonies  was  the  down- 


MAP  SHOWING  DISTRIBUTION  OF 

INDIAN  TRIBES 

AT  THE  TIME  O'F 

THE  FRENCH  AND  INDIAN  WAR 

SCALE  OF  MILES 

0  100  200  300 


Independence  and  Union          299 

fall  of  the  Stuart  Kings  in  England,  which 
brought  about  the  coming  of  many  of  the  cava- 
lier families  to  Virginia  to  escape  living  under 
the  rule  of  Cromwell.  John  Fiske  tells  us  that 
among  those  who  came  at  this  time  were  the  an- 
cestors of  George  Washington  and  other  famous 
Virginians  who  were  prominent  in  the  Revolu- 
tion. These  were  families  of  a  better  class  of 
the  English  than  had  yet  come  in  numbers  to 
America. 

For  fifteen  or  twenty  years  this  flocking  of  the 
cavaliers  into  Virginia  continued  and  made  a 
great  change  in  the  nature  of  the  Virginia 
people.  These  men  had  been  in  England  the 
owners  of  large  estates,  and  coming  to  Virginia 
they  lived  much  as  they  had  at  home,  an  inde- 
pendent life  upon  great  plantations,  helping  to 
increase  the  division  into  social  classes  of  which 
we  have  already  spoken. 

With  the  coming  of  the  Stuarts  back  to  the 
throne  of  England,  or  the  Restoration,  begins  a 
period  in  the  history  of  the  colonies  chiefly  noted 
for  troubles  between  the  people  and  the  govern- 
ors whom  the  King  sent  over  to  represent 
him ;  and  also  for  the  attempts  to  control  the 
commerce  of  the  colonies  in  the  interest  of  Eng- 
lish merchants.  These  attempts  took  mainly  the 


300         When  America  Was  New 

form  of  laws  meant  to  keep  the  colonists  from 
profiting  by  the  trade  across  the  seas,  and  trying 
to  turn  all  such  profits  into  the  hands  of  the 
English  merchants. 

Of  course  the  laws  meant  to  bring  about  this 
effect  were  hated  by  the  Americans,  and  since 
they  were  not  thought  to  be  just  laws,  many 
American  merchants  and  sailors  had  little  scruple 
about  escaping  them  by  smuggling  and  by  every 
trick  and  device.  This  period  brought  about  for 
a  time  an  apparent  uniting  of  the  colonies  along 
the  northern  coast  under  the  King's  represent- 
ative, Governor  Andros ;  but,  when  the  second 
English  Revolution  had  driven  James  II  into 
exile,  and  put  an  end  to  the  Stuart  Kings,  the 
colonies  went  back  almost  at  once  to  their 
former  separate  condition,  showing  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  Andros  had  been  supported  only  by 
force. 

In  1685  the  French,  who  had  been  allowing 
the  Protestants,  or  Huguenots,  to  live  unmolested 
in  their  own  land,  put  an  end  to  the  law  that  pro- 
tected them,  and  when  these  men  were  no  longer 
safe  at  home  many  of  them  crossed  the  seas  and 
took  refuge  in  America,  adding  a  new  element 
to  the  population.  They  were  a  fine  race,  mostly. 
of  the  middle  and  upper  classes,  were  intelligent, 


Independence  and  Union          301 

bright,  and  thrifty.  They  had  an  excellent 
training  in  many  trades  and  callings,  besides 
possessing  the  taste  and  nicety  in  work  which 
has  always  distinguished  the  French.  They 
brought  with  them  a  great  deal  of  knowledge  in 
regard  to  manufactures,  and  many  trade  secrets 
that  proved  of  the  greatest  value  to  all  the  coun- 
tries where  they  took  refuge,  and  especially  valu- 
able to  America,  which  was  trying  to  set  up  new 
industries,  so  that  its  workers  were  eager  to  learn 
what  the  French  refugees  could  teach  them  of 
the  best  ways.  Huguenots  had  come  from  time 
to  time  through  the  whole  colonial  period,  but 
now  they  came  in  great  numbers,  and  proved  a 
most  valuable  addition  to  the  American  people. 

Trying  to  sum  up  in  our  minds  the  effect  upon 
these  thousands  of  people  of  living  in  a  new  way 
and  in  a  new  land,  we  shall  find  that  the  most 
important  thing  in  the  case  of  nearly  all  of  them 
was  the  fact  that  it  gave  them  ambition, — the 
hope  of  rising  in  the  world,  the  chance  to  make 
something  of  themselves,  and  of  bettering  the 
fortunes  of  their  children.  With  this  hope,  it  is 
natural  that  they  should  be  impatient  of  every- 
thing that  seemed  an  attempt  to  put  them  back 
into  the  same  state  they  had  lived  in  at  home. 

They  became  jealous  of  their  rights,  eager  to 


302         When  America  Was  New 

keep  the  liberty  they  had  won,  quick  to  resist 
whatever  threatened  to  take  from  them  what  had 
cost  them  so  many  hardships,  what  they  had  won 
amid  so  many  perils.  Having  learned  the  value 
of  liberty  to  themselves,  and  seeing  the  good 
effect  of  it  upon  their  neighbors,  they  became 
more  willing  to  respect  one  another's  rights  and 
to  help  others  to  keep  what  all  had  won  and 
what  all  valued. 

But,  together  with  this  love  of  liberty,  the 
effect  of  coming  to  a  land  where  at  first  there 
was  no  law  and  no  authority  except  that  of  the 
people  themselves,  they  had  learned  that  there 
must  be  laws ;  that  laws  must  be  executed ;  that 
they  must  be  made  known  to  the  people;  and 
that  it  was  the  interest  of  all  in  every  community 
to  enforce  these  laws  and  to  see  that  good  citizens 
were  not  interfered  with  by  bad,  and  that  bad 
citizens  were  made  to  submit  to  force  if  they 
could  not  be  persuaded  to  behave. 

In  matters  of  religion,  coming  originally  with 
the  idea  of  allowing  each  man  his  own  opinions 
and  the  right  to  conduct  himself  as  he  chose, 
they  found  out  that  it  was  necessary  to  limit 
these  rights,  just  as  in  ordinary  life  they  found 
that  the  rights  of  one  must  always  be  limited  by 
those  of  another.  Hence  it  was  soon  discovered 


Independence  and  Union          303 

that  there  were  limits  even  to  freedom  in  religion, 
and  that  a  man  must  not  be  allowed,  under  the 
pretense  of  religious  views,  to  do  harm  to  the 
community  in  which  he  lived. 

To  the  earliest  comers  the  most  important 
things  were  bodily  health,  strength,  bravery,  and 
the  ability  to  make  a  home  in  the  wilderness. 
But  after  the  first  battle  with  nature  was  won, 
and  the  colonists  found  leisure  to  think  of  some- 
thing besides  their  bodily  needs,  they  felt  that 
their  children  ought  to  know  more  of  the  world 
than  they  themselves  had  done;  so  they  set  a 
high  value  upon  education. 

These  were  the  main  qualities  that  have  made 
the  American  people  what  they  are  to-day.  But 
during  the  next  century  these  qualities  were 
greatly  strengthened,  and  the  war  against  the 
English  put  an  end  to  the  fashion  of  imitating 
the  ways  of  the  Old  World,  and  gave  the  Amer- 
icans the  wish  to  become  in  all  ways  a  nation 
rather  than  a  colony — a  new  people,  rather  than 
part  of  an  old  people. 

The  early  period  of  American  colonial  history 
ends  with  the  beginning  of  a  war  between  Eng- 
land and  France  in  1689.  The  century  that  fol- 
lowed was  to  see  the  making  of  a  new  nation. 


TABLE  OF  EVENTS  AND  DATES 

1492  Columbus  discovers  West  India  islands. 

1497  John  Cabot  discovers  North  America. 

1513  Ponce   de   Leon  in  Florida. 
Balboa  sees  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

1518  Magellan  discovers  the  Straits  named  after  him. 

1524  Atlantic  coastline  explored. 

1534  French  enter  the  St.  Lawrence. 

^9      I  Spanish  explorations  of  the  interior. 

1558    Accession  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
1584     Virginia  discovered  by  Raleigh. 
1588     Defeat  of  the  Spanish  Grand  Armada. 
English  colonists  first  come  to  America. 

1602  Gosnold  explores  New  England  coast. 

1603  James  I  comes  to  the  throne. 

1607  Settlement  of  Jamestown. 

1608  Hudson  River  discovered  by  Henry  Hudson. 
French  settlements  in  Canada. 

Pilgrims  flee  to  Holland. 
1610     Settlement  of  Newfoundland  by  the  French. 

Lord  Delaware  comes  to  Virginia  as  governor. 
1614     Capt.  John  Smith  explores  and  maps  the  New  England 
coast. 

1619  Self  government  in  Virginia. 

First  slaves  brought  to  Virginia  by  a  Dutch  ship. 

1620  Plymouth  settlement  by  the  Pilgrims. 

1627  Swedes  settle  in  New  Jersey  and  Delaware. 

1628  Puritans  settle  Salem. 

1629  John  Harvey,  first  Royal  Governor  in  Virginia. 

3°5 


306      Table  of  Events  and  Dates 

1630    The  "  Great  Emigration  "  of  Puritans  to  Massachusetts. 
Boston  founded,  under  John  Winthrop. 

I  Maryland  settled  under  the  Calverts. 
1633     / 

1636  Connecticut  settlements  begun. 

Roger  Williams  begins  Providence,  in  Rhode  Island. 

1637  War  against  Pequot  Indians. 

1638  Harvard  College  founded. 
1640     Meeting  of  Long  Parliament. 

1642  Printing  press  set  up  at  Cambridge,  Mass. 

1643  New  England  Colonies  join  in  a  federation. 

The  Civil  War  in  England  between  King  and  Parlia- 
ment. 

Emigration  to  America  greatly  diminished. 
1649     King  Charles  beheaded. 

Commonwealth  begins  in  England. 
1653     Oliver  Cromwell,  Protector. 
1658     Death  of  Cromwell. 

AA       1  Quakers  persecuted. 

1660     Stuarts  restored,  Charles  II. 
1664     England  takes  New  Netherlands. 

South  Carolina  granted  to  Lord  Clarendon. 
1670     Plymouth  Colony  contains  8,000  inhabitants. 
1676     Bacon's  Rebellion  in  Virginia;  "King  Philip's  War" 
in  New  England. 

1679  New  Hampshire  founded. 

1680  Penn  obtains  charter  for  Pennsylvania. 
1683     Philadelphia  begun. 

1685     James  II  comes  to  the  throne. 

1689     Overthrow  of  the  royal  governors,  following  the  flight 

of  James  II,  and  the  coming  to  the  throne  of  the 

House  of  Orange,  William  and  Mary. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

In  the  preparation  of  this  book  the  following  volumes  have 
been  chiefly  consulted;  and  are  recommended  to  the  young 
reader : 

"  Source-Book  of  American  History  "  (Hart),  Macmillan  Com- 
pany. 

"  Two  Centuries  of  Costume  in  America  "  (Alice  Morse  Earle) , 
Macmillan  Company. 

"  The  Beginners  of  a  Nation  "  (Edward  Eggleston),  Appleton. 
"  The  Transit  of  Civilization  "  (Ed-ward  Eggleston),  Appleton. 

"Students'  History  of  the  United  States"   (Channing),  Mac- 
millan Company. 

"  Industrial  History  of  the  United  States  "  (Katharine  Coman), 
Macmillan  Company. 

« Industrial  Evolution  of  the  United  States  "  (  Wright),  Chau- 
tauqua  Press. 

«  Good  Old  Times  "  (Kellogg-),  Lee  &  Shepard. 

"  Home  Life  in  Colonial  Days "  (Alice  Morse  Earle),  Mac- 
millan Company. 

"  Stepping   Stones  of  American   History "  (various  authors), 
W.  A.  Wilde  Company. 

"  Men,  Women  and  Manners  in  Colonial  Times  "  (Sydney  G. 
Fisher),  J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co. 

«  History  of  the  United  States "  (for  schools)  (John  Fiske), 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 

« History  of  the  American   People "  (  W.   Wilson),   Harper 
Bros. 

"The  Pilgrim  Fathers"  (W.  Bartletf),  Hall,  Virtue  &  Co. 
«  The  England  of  Shakespeare  "  (John  GoaJby),  Cassell  &  Co. 
3°7 


308  Bibliography 

"  The  Pilgrims  in  their  Three  Homes  "  (  William  Eliot  Griffis\ 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 

"Old  Virginia  and  Her  Neighbors"  {John  Fiske),  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co. 

"The  Planting  of  New  England"  (John  Fiske\  Houghton. 
Mifflin  &  Co. 


Index 


AGRICULTURE,  108,  120 
Alden,  John,  44,  45 
ambition  in  colonists,  285,  301 
American  character,   286,  287, 

302 

amusements,  224-228,  231,  232 
Andros,  Governor,  300 
animals,  names  for,  279 
Armada,  6 
arms  of  military,  169 
army,  the,  272 
art,  227,  228 
astrology,  192,  194 
astronomy,  192 
authority,  respect  for,  212 
authors  in  America,  218 
axe,  American,  135,  151 

BACKBOARD,  255 

Bacon,  Francis,  22,  277 

Bacon,  Nathaniel,  240,  271,  290 

Balboa,  2 

Baltimore,  98 

Baltimore,    Lord,   79,   82,   (see 

Calverts) 

bayberry  wax,  1 88 
Berkeley,  Governor,  240,  290 
bezoar  stone,  210 
bibliography,  307 
bleeding  in  medicine,  202,  203 
blockhouses,  170 
•«  blue  laws,"  Connecticut,  226 
bone-setters,  203 
books,  theology,  216,  218 
Boston  intolerant,  67 


botanical  doctors,  21 1 

boys,  educating,  257,  261,  (see 

education,  schools) 
boys,  settlers',  144 
Bradford,  William,  32,  47,  55, 

Bradstreet,  Anne,  218 
breakfast  dishes,  172 
Brewster,  William,  45 
building,  104 
burgesses,  Virginia,  164 
"  burn,"  a  137 
Byrd,  William,  239,  240 

CALLINGS  and  trades,  145,  243, 
250 

Calverts,  80-84,  (see  Baltimore) 

eandles,  187,  188 

carpets,  184 

ceremonies,  270 

changed  customs,  77 

Charles  II,  241 

chase,  the,  226 

chimneys,  106,  149,  190 

children,  127,  128,  180,  244, 
245,  256,  260,  266  (see  edu- 
cation, boys,  school) 

church  going,  175 

churns,  153 

Civil  War,  England,  62,  166 

classes,  social,  26,  27,  251,  252, 
258 

classics,  the,  229 

clergy,  272 

clocks,  1 86 


3°9 


310 


Index 


cloth,  184 

"  code  of  honor,"  258 

cold  houses,  172 

"  Colonel"  in  Virginia,  164 

colony,  government,  68,  74,  95, 

167 
colony,  kinds  of  government,  84, 

1 68;  schools,  261,  262 
colonists,  north  and  south,  III, 

146 

colors  in  dress,  179 
Columbus,  purpose  of,  I 
comets,  195 
commissioners     from    colonies, 

297 

Connecticut  founded,  291 
cooking,  142,  190,  191 
Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  170 
Copernican  system,  193 
corn-meal,  140 
corn-shellers,  152 
Coronado,  4 
Cortez,  3 

costume,  157,  177-180,  244 
"  court  language,"  277 
"  Croatan,"  42  (see  Roanoke) 

DALE,  GOVERNOR,  18 

dancing,  225,  256 

"  Day  of  Doom,"  poem,  219 

Delaware,  Lord,  18 

de  Leon,  Ponce,  3 

democracy,  beginning   of,  260, 

269,  271,272,  274 
"  deportment,"  255 
de  Soto,  4 
dialects,  282,  283 
docility  of  colonists,  212 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  5 
drama,  231 
Drayton,  Michael,  9 
dress,  233,  234,  (see  costume) 


drinking,  hard,  155,  156,  226, 

286 

drugs,  209,  210,  (see  medicine) 
Dudley,  Thomas,  63 
Dutch  colonists,  85,  86,  90,  106 
"  Dutch  oven,"  190 

"  EASTWARD  Ho !  "  play,  36 
education,    192,   220-223,   255» 

262,  (see  schools) 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  160 
Endicott,  John,  63 
England,  under  Elizabeth,  32 
English   and  French  colonists, 

298 
English    Revolution,    64,    (see 

Civil  War) 
events,     important,     297-300; 

table  of,  305 

FARMS,  in  New  England,  150 

feeling  toward  England,  213 

feeling  toward  foreigners,  214 

fences,  150 

fisheries,  56,  III,  114 

flint  and  steel,  189 

Florida,  early  colony,  5 

flower  raising,  244 

food,  112,  114,  115,  172,  l8l 

footwear,  1 80 

foreigners,  feeling  toward,  214 

forks,  181 

"  Fortune,"  ship,  55 

Fox,  George,  293,  (see  Quakers) 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  259 

French  colonists,  94,  298,  (see 

Huguenots) 

furniture,  173,  183-186 
fur  trade,  85,  91-93 

GILBERT,  SIR  HUMPHREY,  5 
glass,  182 


Index 


Goadby,  Edwin,  34 
gold  as  medicine,  209 
««  Good  Old  Times,"  130 
Gosnold,  Captain,  9,  12 
"  Great  Charter,"  Virginia,  21 
government,  Jamestown,  15,  (see 
colonies) 

HAIR-DRESSING,  177 
Hakluyt's  "Voyages,"  37 
Hale,  Edward  Everett,  quoted, 

270 

hard  times  in  England,  36 
Harvey,  Governor,  289 
health  of  colonists,  285 
hepatica,  205 
holidays,  156 
Holland  soldiers  from,  33 
home,  settler's,  136 
Hooker,  Thomas,  291 
horn-book,  221 
houses,  104,  105,  107,  149 
houses,  raising,  224 
housewifery,  256 
Hudson,  Henry,  85 
Hudson  River,  98 
Huguenots,  300 
"  humors,"   in   medicine,   202, 

203,  206 

husking-bees,  224 
Hutchinson,  Anne,  293 
hymns,  singing,  230 

ILLNESS  at  Jamestown,  14 
indentured  servants,  24 
independence  of  colonists,  289- 

292 

"  Independents,"  the,  65 
India,  passage  to,  16,  38,  73 
Indians,  American,  40,  53,  116- 
125,  144;  corn,  281;  feeling 
toward,  214 ;  fighting  against, 


•   169,    171,    295;    languages, 

281 ;  medicine,  210 
ingenuity,  Yankee,  242 
"  inland  sea,"  39 
insect-life,  origin  of,  195 
iron,  106 

JAMESTOWN,  9,  13,  14 
Jonson,  Ben,  36 

KELLOGG,  REV.  ELIJAH,  129 
Kennebec  Colony,  8 
King  Philip's  War,  29 

LAMPS,  189 

landing  of  Pilgrims,  51-53 

land  ownership,  19,  24,  25,  57, 

124,  246,  273 
language,  276-284 
Latin  schools,  222 
laws,  enforcing,  168 
leather,  152 

Leyden,  Pilgrims  at,  30 
libraries,  colonial,  216,  239 
lighting,  187,  188 
liquor,  147,  155,  156,  226,  286 
log  cabins,  142 

"  MAGNETISM,"  208 

maize,  280,  281 

manners,  286 

maple  sugar,  113,  I2O 

market-days,  156 

Maryland,  79-83 

Massachusetts  Company,  6l 

matches,  190 

"  Mayflower,"  the,  31,  47,  48, 

51,  69 
McLennan,  Hugh  (a  settler), 

meal  times,  174 
medicine,  201-211 


312 


Index 


Merrymount,  294 
militia,  168 
mills,  151,  152 
moccasins,  180 
music,  230,  231,  256 

NAMES,  Scriptural,  174 

natural  history,  196 

nature,  love  of,  212 

negro  dialect,  283 

New  England  life,  242 

New  England  ways  and  Vir- 
ginian, 28 

New  Netherland,  85-91,  106 

Newport,  Captain,  9 

New  ways  in  America,  237, 
238,  242,  268 

New  York,  86,  89 

ORNAMENTS,  wearing  of,  178 

PALISADES,  170 

paper,  writing,  223 

patchwork,  184 

patroons,  162 

Penn,  William,  165 

pens  and  pencils,  222,  (see 
writing) 

Pequot  War,  295 

pewter,  182 

Philadelphia,  98 

pies,  172 

pigeons,  wild,  139 

Pilgrims,  the,  29,  43  j  and  Pur- 
itans, 60,  65 

pillion,  148 

pirates,  49 

plantation  life,  234,  241 

plays,  36 

Plymouth,  52,  54 

Pocahontas,  23,  278 

portages,  148 


position  of  women,  254 

poverty,  234,  248 

Powhatan,  279 

preaching,  156 

primers,  222 

printing,  217 

"  privilege,"  269-276 

products  of  the  colonies,  1 6,  17, 

55>  86»  97 

Ptolemaic  system,  193 
punishments,  162,  163 
Puritan  boy,  61  ;  settlements, 

64 ;  and  Pilgrims,  60,  65 

QUAKERS,  27,  66,  293 

RALEIGH,  SIR  WALTER,  5,  7, 

3°»4i 

reading,  174 
rebellion  in  colonies,  289,  (see 

Bacon,  Nathaniel) 
Regicides,  the,  290 
religious  freedom,  83 
Restoration,  the,  82,  167 
rich  and  poor,  249 
"  ride  and  tie,"  148 
Roanoke  Colony,  6,  41,  42 
roasting-jack,  191 
Rolfe,  John,  23,  279 
royal  governors,  74,  75,  78,  (see 

Andros) 

royalists  in  Virginia,  164 
rushlights,  188 

SABBATH,  the,  175,  176 

Salem,  63,  64 

samplers,  172,  228 

San  Domingo,  12 

Sandys,  George,  20 ;  Sir  Edwin, 

19 
Satan,  197 


Index 


3»3 


"save-all,"  188 

schools,  220-223,  244,  261,  262 

Scripture,  views  of,  199 

Scriptures,  King  James'  Ver- 
sion, 278 

scurvy,  12 

self-governing  colonies,  165 

"  servant,"  meanings,  283 

settler,  a  typical,  132 

settlers,  north  and  south,  59 

sheep-farming,  England,  36 

ship-building,  99,  100,  102 

sidewalks,  158 

"  signatures,"  doctrine  of,  204 

signs,  158 

singing  school,  225 

skin  clothing,  178 

slavery,  26 

Smith,  John,  10-17,  33,  43,  50, 
72,  238 

smuggling,  96,  100-103 

soap-making,  127 

social  classes,  161 

soldiers,  169 

Spanish  exploring,  4 

"  Spanish  marriage,"  the,  82 

«  Speedwell,"  the,  31 

spelling-bee,  225 

spermaceti,  188 

spice  trade,  39 

spinning,  151,  152 

sports,  224-228,  232 

Standish,  Myles,  33,  44,45,  71 » 
Laura,  173 

Stegg,  Thomas,  238 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  175 

strangers  in  towns,  159 

stray  animals,  155 

sugar-cutters,  153 

superstitions,  194,  195,  201, 
207,  294 

"sympathy,"  medicine,  207 


TABLE-MANNERS,  181,  183 

taxation,  97,  101,  275 

teaching,  263,  (see  schools) 

theology,  196,  197 

timber,  97,  98 

tinder-box,  189 

titles,  274 

tobacco,  23 

tools,  138 

town   life,   70,   109,    112,   160, 

256,  257 
trade   and   commerce,   96,   98, 

157,  (see  fur  trade,  fisheries, 

ship-building,     products     of 

colonies) 
trapping,  93 
traveling,  148,  233,  (see  "  ride 

and  tie  ") 
trenchers,  181 
"  Turkey,"  280 
tutors,  223 

UNION  of  colonies,  295,  296 

VIRGINIA,  7,  8,  11,  13,  176; 

voyage  to,  12;  boyhood  in, 

265 

visitors  from  Old  World,  232 
voyages,  early,  46-48 
"  Voyages,"  Hakluyt's,  37 

WAGONS,  149 
wampum,  89 
Ward,  Nathaniel,  218 
warfare,  Indian,  76 
warming  houses,  190,  191 
warming-pan,  191 
Washington,  George,  299 
wealth,  acquiring,  247-250 
West  India  Company,  85 
Weymouth,    70,     (see    Merry- 
mount) 


314  Index 

whale-oil,  188  witchcraft,  198-200 

Wigglesworth,  Michael,  219  women,  125-127,  179,  254 

wigs»  *77  woodenware,  182 

William  of  Orange,  81  wounds,  treatment  of,  208 

Williams,  Roger,  66,  290,  293  wrestling,  225 

winter  sports,  232  writing,  222,  263,  264 
Winthrop,  John,  63,  270,  291 


MAY  2  2  1917 


